


Call Me Daddy

by yuu_sama



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Daddy Kink, Darker & Crueler Asami Ryuichi, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Harem: Everyone Wants Takaba Akihito, K-Pop Male Idols as Original Male Characters, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Out Of Character (OOC), POV: First-Person Narrative (Takaba Akihito), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pseudo-Incest, Sexual & Psychological Abuse, Slow Build: Asami Ryuichi/Takaba Akihito, Stockholm Syndrome, Total Depravity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-04 22:59:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 44,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuu_sama/pseuds/yuu_sama
Summary: In this Alternate Universe, Takaba Akihito was an adept young man with secrets and unholy ghosts of the past that he continued to fight, weaving threads of life through hardship on so many levels, undeniably blessed with a rare condition in which people naturally gravitated toward him. Ironically, despite the pulling power, he was also known to be a complete shit magnet who attracted countless grave misfortunes, and somehow always survived life-or-death situations. He was a “normal” high-spirited bartender in a gay bar and secretly an underground fighter when off-duty, until his life was turned upside down after a sincere act of humanity caused him to cross paths with a supreme leader of both the hidden underworld and legal reality. In the face of childhood traumas and relentless shitty situations one after another, Akihito signed a pact with the devil. Would he survive the unexpected turn of events this time?





	1. Wake Me Up Inside

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: Asami Ryuichi, Takaba Akihito and all characters in Finder Series belong to Yamane Ayano sensei.
> 
> *) Indented paragraphs with italicized words = Flashbacks of the First Person

**"Monsters are real; ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."**

_\- Stephen King -_

 

* * *

 

I was an _angel._ Or perhaps I just had too much pride in myself because so _they_ called me. In fact, I was never a holy creature. In this spacious master bedroom yet cramped with expensive smells of smokes and delicious sins, I was being eaten alive by superior lust. The most formidable carnivore with piercing, golden orbs. I couldn’t escape this depth of hell he dragged me into, so drowned in shame and madness caused by these unceasing, sweet tortures of my unforgiving tempter. Blood, sweat and tears covered me as I was slowly, and mercilessly, devoured by a demon coming straight from the most horrendous nightmare of my childhood. A real, majestic demon. Domineering, diabolic, never sated. His whispers slipped through my retreating consciousness like a poisonous serpent. Through huge cracks of my self-worth into the core of my soul, ruthlessly pulling me back to reality again and again only to make me see how he indulged in my agony, leaving nothing left of me but searing heat and nasty desire. On the large panel of glass in front of me I saw his towering reflection, I saw his evil smirk as he claimed my existence, and I cried dryly when I found the distasteful face of my own. I was unheard, so high above the city of lights where I was trapped more than fifty floors from the ground, repeatedly slammed against the transparent wall out of animalistic hunger.

“How is it? Takaba Akihito?” A forceful kiss landed on my jawline down to my neck, preventing me from an easy escape into the darkness. “The pain and pleasure I’m giving you?”

“A... Asa... mi...”

“Say it.”

“A... sa—”

The dangerous rush of ecstasy made me want to vomit. I felt disgusted, but on the other side — the unseen sinful side of me — I felt so good I succumbed to the carnivore who was eating me alive. His fingertips lingered on my sweaty body, mostly poised around the most sensitive parts of my physical form. Searching for the unguarded crumbles of my defense. I was drowned in the humiliation and indescribable pleasure at the same time, hating myself as I allowed the crime lord to consume what was left from my sanity. Scratch after scratch. Bite after bite. Thrust after thrust. It never crossed my mind that one day I would end up being in the horrible imprisonment of a penthouse suite, violated by a barbaric man who had been perfectly hiding behind the noble appearance of a successful businessman. All this time I could only catch a glimpse of him on the mass media, most of the times accidentally, when I stumbled on business or political matters that I never had any real interest in. And I knew full well that he and I lived in two different worlds, so far apart. I thought he always was a captivating filthy rich unmarried man with such a flawless package of an amazing brain, power and looks. Much to my shock, he was in actual fact the _worst_ of all people.

Asami Ryuichi.

Already a billionaire in his mid-thirties, basking in the jaw-dropping victory of his business empire that spread throughout Japan and throughout a stunning number of developed and developing nations. On the surface, the poker-faced bachelor was notably known to be a charismatic leader of many companies and for-profit organizations, not to mention an A-list sex symbol of a Japanese gentleman whom females would die for. Just _that_. The world I lived in only knew _that_ part of him. Because behind the mask of a sophisticated magnate, a demon grinned contentedly at the clueless society he had been deceiving with blinding glitters of lawful wealth, while he held the master key to the underground world. In undetected places where all sins were legal and justice was completely futile, he was feared as the lord of unlawful activities including top crimes such as arms and drug trafficking. And there were still many, many more that I didn’t dare to think of. He was an undercover criminal. And at last, he was a loathsome sadist who enjoyed raping a man.

“Can’t say anything?” he muttered feverishly, his tongue entering the cave of my ear. My system was about to shut down as he jolted me back into life. “I thought I fought an angry _tiger_ a moment ago.” His devilish laugh managed to make my eyes flutter open and to my horror, my battered body reacted submissively to how he lured the aphrodisiac substance that dwelled in my blood. I was so close to a complete release, until he suddenly held me back and I let out a frustrated cry. “Now it feels like I’m playing with a _kitten_ ,” he whispered with an intimidating note of amusement. “A _cute_ kitten _._ ”

I believed I had several broken bones from being subjected to lengthy interrogations, so doomed under dreadful threats and violence. Asami Ryuichi was a man without pity demanding a statement of truth from me, but never found it. Out of dissatisfaction he introduced me to a lot of nauseating methods of torture, and I hazily remembered how I fell deeper into his unforgiving nature, legs restrained by shackles, one hand pushed against my back, penetrated endlessly by the human predator in an angelic form. I wished he could just kill me already. Indeed, he was killing my slowly by crushing my self-respect first, turning me worse than trash because I craved his guiltless kisses in a horrid way I had never imagined. Because I called his name over and over again, begging him to loosen his iron grip around the raging hardness between my groins.

“Shit.” I heard him curse with slight annoyance. “Know what, Akihito?” he asked me in wild excitement, pulling my sweaty strands of hair so my head slanted to the left and he freely planted a deep bite into the exposed flesh of my neck. “I’ve never felt so damn good like this before...” Pure rapture or immense fear; I was too helpless to define the expression on my face that I glanced at on the transparent surface that worked like a mirror. “I did plan to wreck you apart... to make you bleed to death...” Even his maniacal look that was reflected on the glass panel tempted me. When I turned my head to look back at him, he suddenly welcomed me with a long, passionate kiss. Just like what I wanted — oh, _no_ , that’s what my _fucking flesh_ wanted. _Really,_ I thought I was crazy the moment our tongues intertwined. “... but that’ll be a great shame, right?” he said as our lips parted for hasty breathing, then smiled as he found me demented with unsatisfied need.

From the view of the hustle and bustle of the metropolitan city of Tokyo, Asami Ryuichi hauled me up with the might of a beast, uncaring of my excruciating pain when my slinged arm was shocked by his fierceness. The sexual connection between us paused momentarily as he impatiently moved me, until I heard crashing sounds and loud thuds of objects that fell down on the floor. He wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up effortlessly, knowing that I couldn’t use my feet. Then suddenly he slammed me down against the cleared table and smacked the naked cheeks of my butt, giving me a signal to prepare for his next aggression. With the side of my face pressed against the cold wooden surface, I waited for the nightmare to repeat itself. Hurriedly, Asami Ryuichi repositioned his solid erection into me, leaning down on me that I could feel his well-toned chest grazed the very thin fabric that covered my back. When I let out delirious moans, he knew immediately that he had returned to the right spot, triumphantly pounding me harder and harder out of a raw mating instinct — _which_ terrified me, since he still showed great stamina even after immoral hours of eating me up alive.

“This delicious body...” The god-like demon yanked my hair so fiercely that I could hear an eerie sound of my neck cracking, then led his tongue to dance on my tear-stained cheek. This time I kept my mouth shut, biting my lip too hard that it started to bleed. “I won’t let it go to waste.” His next thrusts were mercilessly faster, deeper, really giving me a hard time to breathe and employ my consciousness as I was pinned between the concrete furniture and the forceful weight of his body. Then unexpectedly he slowed down, letting out an amused laugh as he noticed me struggling to swallow my groans. “What the hell is wrong with me?” He sounded dazed, as if intoxicated, pushing his way into my mouth with his index and middle fingers. I quickly lost against the irresistible sensations and gave up, allowing the curious parts of his hand to explore my mouth and ruin my pointless determination. “Strange, it is. Do sex drugs sometimes give out contagious effects?” He withdrew his hand, then slapped my butt. Two times, three times, until he got what he wanted. My hoarse sounds of ecstasy. “And what the hell are you, Akihito? Bewitching me when I intended to kill you?” He tugged at the collar of my shirt before finally tearing the thin garment, exposing a pair of wings tattooed on my back. “An _angel_?” he commented with a mordant tone. “Fine, Akihito. I’ll break these wings of yours and cage you for the rest of your life.”

I never expected that Asami Ryuichi would be a talkative bastard, particularly during sexual intercourse. Either he got high on some dope or just finally showed his true self, I made a mental note that he really was a scary, domineering beast who enjoyed trampling on somebody else’s worth. One accidental circumstance led me to _him —_ my unbelievably worst misfortune — to this cold-blooded murderer who had taught me a real lesson that I should have never been too kind to any stranger I met. Asami Ryuichi was, without a shadow of a doubt, out of my league. A charming and mighty businessman, whose name always echoed in charity parties usually attended by Japanese socialites, politicians and celebrities. But behind that spotlessly clean reputation, he used the dirtiest ways to make it to the top. I didn’t know how he escaped the law through all the years he made himself publicly known. Whether his stoical face was a part of his masquerade or the result of his manipulative nature, I dared not guess. But to me, it was clear that he was a psychopath with a split personality.

“Shouldn’t you have thanked me? For I've spared your life after you stole what’s mine?” Asami Ryuichi rang a chilling melody near my ear, just when I was about to faint from relentless heat and frustration. After devouring me on the table, he dragged me to a leather couch and sat me on top of him with my back against his sculpted chest and well-defined abdominals. I helplessly leaned on him while his hands went up and down abusing my nipples and genitals, legs widely spread on his lap. “For your information, nobody ever lived to tell the tale after messing with me,” he said after breaking his distasteful force on my lips, sending me straight to total depravity and the lowest level of degradation.

Out of fiery anger my eyes shot open, searching for the motherfucking beguiling face that grinned at the suffering he inflicted on me. A splitting headache pounded in my skull, bringing me close again to the verge of vomit before a complete collapse. But I forced myself to stay awake, making certain that Asami Ryuichi saw the utmost contempt of mine. I furiously turned my face as he tried to swallow me in another lustful kiss. Little did I know that my rejection entertained him instead.

“Still refuse to talk?” The twisted man buried a low, devilish laugh in my ear. “Too high that you can only use your mouth to moan like a horny bitch?” Just when I thought I could defend my pride, he made me overwhelmingly defeated. Then he nibbled my ear as if it was bubble gum, before continuing to leave more bluish red marks on my neck and shoulder. “Oh, so cute, Akihito,” he breathed seductively. “Keep resisting. I love it.”

A numbing wave of pain swept over me as he tightened his arms that secured me in that disgraceful pose, penetrating me without preamble. Looking back at him, I gave him a defiant gaze and finally muttered the famous last words, “... fuck you.”

 

> _“Holy shit...!”_
> 
> _I looked back and forth, panicking. Because I was absolutely in need of rest after a series of part-time jobs since morning, and because I wanted to reach home as soon as possible, I took several shortcuts which mostly consisted of less crowded alleyways between buildings along the shopping and residential streets of Shibuya. To make it worse, I got caught in a torrential downpour. Usually calm and safe, little did I know that the last route I passed through by bicycle led me straight to the open gate of hell instead of home. The moment I noticed a suspicious sight of a man sitting limply between two huge garbage bins under the heavy rain, my brain warned me to stay fucking away and keep going, but — damn it — it was the absurdity of my immediate sympathy that made me divert the two-wheeled vehicle and squeezed both brakes. To my horror, the flash of lightning helped me see the pool of crimson red under my feet and I quickly realized that I wasn’t in a good situation._
> 
> _“Sir!” I dreaded to think what had happened to the stranger (whom I assumed to be a man in his forties), but he was drenched to the skin with blood oozing out of the holes on his chest and stomach. “Can you hear me, Sir?!” I loudly raised my voice, trying to find any sign of life from him._
> 
> _His head moved slightly. I gasped from momentary relief. “... would you...”_
> 
> _“Yes?” I leaned forward, giving him an encouraging grip on his shoulder. “I’m listening, Sir!”_
> 
> _“... would you mind...” said the man hoarsely, lifting his weak gaze to meet mine. Just take a few seconds and I knew that the man was dying. “Argh—no...” Using what seemed to be the last store of strength he pulled himself away from the mildewed back wall of the building behind him, wincing in so much pain that my heart ached. And when a loud crash of thunder broke the suffocating silence between us, he handed over something to me. I was utterly confused, terrified, unable to digest what happened in front of me. “I want you to take this bag to... to... Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Medical Center... in Musashidai... to my... ex-wife...” he looked straight into my unblinking eyes, haunting me with an unavoidable demand. “... waiting... she’s waiting...” Then he coughed terribly, already passing his limit as his faltering body thudded against the hard structure behind him._
> 
> _“Wa—wait a minute, Sir!” I stuttered out of fear and shook him instinctively before I completely lost him. “What’s happened to—”_
> 
> _“Go now!” he cut me short all of a sudden, lurching forward and clenching my raincoat so desperately that I couldn’t move away. Holding me longer and I didn’t think I couldn’t breathe. “This is my last wish... help me...” His voice was trembling, not from the cold. Sorrowful eyes pleaded with me. “My daughter... her name is... Saga Asami...”_
> 
> _I gulped hard. People were so right for labeling me as a complete shit magnet._

 

“Saga Asami.”

For Asami Ryuichi, gathering information of whatever he wanted to know about was like taking candy from a baby. I couldn’t imagine his methods, but with absolute power and money, he could get anything he wanted at the push of a button. I gaped at a photograph thrown on the bed, right in front of me. A dark-haired girl around eight to ten, sitting on a swing with half of her face hidden behind the huge Teddy Bear she was holding closely in her arms. Only an eye was seen, open to the world behind the thin strands of hair that fell over her forehead It was a gentle brown orb that screamed out to me immediately, tinged with gloominess and something more complicated that I couldn’t describe and forget easily.

“Who knew that such a lowly rat could bear a pretty kid?” Asami Ryuichi suddenly attacked my stillness and flipped me over on the king-sized bed. I groaned from his uncaring treatment, looking damn ugly and pathetic in the surge of unbearable pain as his heat came into contact with my broken arm and leg. A true professional, the crime lord certainly knew how to deal with people who took the wrong side by retaliating against him. Once I found myself in a creepy deserted warehouse, tied on a rusty chair and mouth taped shut after being savagely beaten by three big brawny men in immaculate black suits. And I was there to be the sole living captive that was forced to witness the ghastly details of how the underworld king eliminated the traitors from his organizations. “So the news that reached my ears was Asami-chan survived the operation,” he said, alarmingly placing his hand on my neck. “What a pity.” There was a demonic gleam in his gaze. “I’m planning to either kill her and her mother later or sell them both to some brothel out there.”

“No! For fuck’s sake, you can’t do that!” I retorted, falling back onto the bed as I failed to control my balance.

“Very funny, Akihito,” he insultingly laughed at the show of my pointless protest. “There’s nothing that I, Asami Ryuichi, can’t do.” Then he yanked my functional hand and pinned it down above my head. He used the same strength that broke my arm yesterday. “What a coincidence that we share _Asami_ to our names.” I clenched my teeth as he began to lick my face, mentally fighting against the unholy excitement that always reacted to his tongue and fingertips as though they were connected to one another. There was a handgun kept inside the drawer of the nightstand near us, but I was so powerless that I instantly wilted in the repulsive feeling of intoxication from the great villain assaulting my lips and dominating me. “Unfortunately, this little Asami must kiss her second chance to live goodbye.”

At his statement my eyes snapped open. I was heavily breathing. Shocked, angered, disgusted. “Leave her alone, you bastard! She’s just a child! She knows nothing!” I screamed myself hoarse, tears forming in my eyes. “Don’t you have heart?!”

“Heart?” Asami Ryuichi replied with a sneer. “Are you talking to me about — _heart_?” The tone of disbelief in his voice deprecated me. And I couldn’t believe I diced with death provoking the sadistic malefactor. During our intense eye contact, I could clearly hear again the blood-curdling screams of people who lost their lives in that warehouse from disembowelment and gunshots. Callous and remorseless was the crime lord, and it appalled me how the general public was blinded to that fact. His piercing gaze then shifted from my resentful eyes to the horrific piece of art he made on me from the last session of torture. Burn marks, after he pressed his expensive cigar against my bare chest. Five times as I remembered, before I fainted and regained my consciousness in a penthouse suite in Shinjuku. “Amusing.” He poked my damaged skin, earning a series of profanities and wails from my mouth. “Nice try, Akihito.” Golden eyes narrowed as he spoke with a hint of menace. “I think I need to remind you that she lives from what was stolen from me.” I tensed from shock and abhorrence when he pressed my throat. “And I always take back what belongs to me.”

Gasping for air, I shouted, “Just go to hell!”

“With pleasure,” he replied with a maniacal grin, loosening his grip, “but not now.” He wiped my tears away and gently caressed the side of my face, only to show me that I had been his mere plaything. “That’s really sweet of you to remind me, Akihito.” I quickly turned my face away when he sucked my nipple, once again threatening the frail sobriety that I struggled to keep. “Or do you, maybe, want to join me?”

“You’re fuckin’ sick, Asami!”

“Complimenting me already?” The dark-haired lawbreaker maintained an unfazed face despite my impulsive insults. The fact that I was still alive could definitely be considered a rare miracle. “I am the _god_ here, Akihito. I decide who lives and who dies.” I froze as fear pervaded me. Asami Ryuichi was a man who meant his every word. “And I’ve decided to make a child pay the price of her father’s unforgivable mistake.”

“NO!!!” I cried the second I noticed the seriousness in his remark. I was being too reckless and stupid maybe, but I was maddened by the way he toyed with people’s lives as if they were insignificant. “YOU CAN’T KILL AN INNOCENT CHILD!!!”

“Or what?”

I opened my mouth, but the direct intimidation from his sharp golden eyes made my mind blank immediately.

“What, Akihito? Why so quiet all of a sudden?” he asked curiously, lifting my chin. “Shit, you... you look so tasty I can bang you forever...”

For the umpteenth time, I was horrified at his macabre sense of humor. Like still water, Asami Ryuichi was unpredictable. Stunningly calm on the surface, but under the undisturbed state a narrow abyss was opening its mouth and waiting to suck anything that plunged into it. I avoided his hypnotizing gaze and recalled the last time I met the little girl in the photograph. She was very thin and the deathly pallor of her skin frightened me. Due to repeated procedures of chemotherapy, the beautiful shiny raven locks were gone. By her side, her mother looked exhausted and hopeless, praying for a miracle if it really existed. I bit my lower lip as a pang of sadness affected me. The sheer suffering and humiliation I was going through at the moment were — indirectly — caused by her dying presence, but I couldn’t bring myself to blame her. Neither could I blame the stranger whom I crossed paths with. In fact, it was my decision to squeeze both brakes of my bicycle and grant his last wish. If I ended up being in the horrendous captivity of Asami Ryuichi, then it must be _my fate_. A cruel twist of fate.

“... please...”

“Excuse me?” The corner of his mouth curved up. “Did you say something?”

I crushed the bed sheet beneath me. Regret and anger stirred within me, but in my situation I knew that such emotions were meaningless. After a strenuous attempt to shut my unwillingness, I inhaled deeply to prepare myself for a suicidal act. “Please... don’t hurt her...” I tremulously said, placing the back of my hand over my mouth.

Asami Ryuichi squeezed my jaw with his strong hand, turning my face back to him. I rebelled at his menacing touch, but soon lost the game. “I’m not expecting you to give up this fast,” he verbalized his dismay. “What makes you go this far, shattering your pride, Akihito?

“LET HER GO!!!” I snapped, ignoring the chills running down the nape of my neck as I reacted against the country’s biggest criminal. “Just fuckin’ kill me instead!” It was completely untrue if I said I had no fear for Asami Ryuichi, but maybe I had a screw loose in my head that I continued to say things that would only boomerang on me. Who could easily forget the mass murder in that warehouse anyway? Bad guys killed other bad guys in the underworld and Asami Ryuichi clearly had established his own rules, but in the name of humanity, I couldn’t justify that. Even so I had no power in me, no plan, no backup, and the horror and nausea from that time still lingered in me. I didn’t need any proof for I was the proof itself. I was certain I couldn’t escape this predicament, but — _an innocent child_ , that was too much. No child must be involved in the sickening war of stupid and depraved adults. “Put whatever mistake her father had done on me, I don’t care!” I looked away again from him, rubbing off the forming small ponds in my eyes with the back of my hand. “Kill me, if it can satisfy the devil in you!”

“Are you serious, Akihito?” he asked, suffocating me with his deep, somber voice that never meant a good thing. “The price will never come cheap, you know that?”

Indeed.

“I’m not the type to grant my enemy a quick, easy death,” said the crime lord, flashing a mystifying smile at me. There was a battle of mentality between us. Our roles were pretty clear: he was the lion, I was the lamb. “I’ll kill you slowly, painfully, mercilessly, until you crawl on the floor and kiss my feet pleading with me to give you a shot in the head.”

“I’m not... scared,” I replied defiantly, even though shivering with fear. My expression must have come out funny that he responded with a snigger. Even when demonstrating his evil, Asami Ryuichi was undoubtedly a godlike creature. Flawless facial features, dark golden eyes that couldn’t be decoded, and a perfect body... _Goddamn it!_

“You’re amazing,” said the enticing demon after voraciously taking my lips, leaving me breathless from the short period of intense contact. Whatever he said was a deadly poison; never meant to be a compliment. “I’m a finicky businessman, but I’ll gladly deem you a great negotiator,” he continued, stroking the sweaty blonde strands of hair off my eyes. “But...” He leaned down, bringing his teasing tongue closer to my aroused nipple. “Are you sure that I won’t end Asami-chan’s life after I take yours first?” I flinched helplessly; just like how he enjoyed it. “What can a dead man do anyway?”

I lifted my head, growling at him as I ran my fingers through his dark hair and gave it a thug. “Expect my revenge from the depth of hell then.”

“Don’t _angels_ always belong to heaven?” he replied, curling his lip.

“I’m not... an angel,” I demurred, looking daggers at those venomous dark golden orbs.

“Oh, right.” Asami Ryuichi grabbed my disrespectful hand and to my surprise, kissed the pale inner part of my wrist where blood vessels were vaguely visible. After thoroughly learning prominent healed cuts along my inner lower arm, he smiled knowingly, then said, “You’re the _fallen_ one.”

 

> _“It’s getting more dangerous for you, Akihito.”_
> 
> _“I’m aware of that,” I replied with my cheek bulging from an orange–flavored lollipop in my mouth, then let out a long relaxed sigh, fixing my awed eyes at the outstanding skyline of Shinjuku against the red and yellow shades of the setting sun. The sleepless ward of the capital city of Japan always looked overcrowded with world-famous skyscrapers, but viewing it on the rooftop made me feel like I was in an art gallery staring at the most breathtakingly beautiful masterpiece. But as I took my lollipop out of my mouth I had to divide my relatively calm mind with the past, recalling the cold of that night and sheer terror that struck me as I without knowing changed my usual course of life. “I thought I was helping a victim of street robbery...” I quietly laughed at myself, laughed at the burdensome surprises I faced following the recent encounter with a stranger. What really gave me a hard time was being stuck in the police station for a lengthy interrogation. “Who knew that I crossed paths with a wanted criminal? A drug dealer, who turned out to be a father of a dying child?” I continued with a smile on my face, but my voice was heavy with irony. “Do you think I’ll be dragged to jail because of my ignorance?”_
> 
> _“Well, I’m afraid it’s not what you need to worry about.”_
> 
> _“And that means?”_
> 
> _“This man is merely a minion. He must have stolen the money from whoever he worked for.” Having been together with him since the rebellious stage of our teenage days, I knew he didn’t mean to intimidate me, but he could really look scary when getting serious. With his strong preference for black and giving-no-fuck-about-anything fashion, people often mistook him as a delinquent while actually he was just a freelance journalist. And a skillful photographer, I approved of that. Moving with a slow pace toward me, he said, “I bet that, somewhere, his big boss is really displeased by his betrayal.”_
> 
> _“No doubt about it,” I agreed, not looking at him, although he was now standing by my side against the railings._
> 
> _“Akihito.” Out finally, that peremptory tone of his. When he called me that way, I would be completely still waiting for whatever he wanted to say or do to me. It was like a spell that only he could start and end. “Now that you’ve been involved in this, I want you to be very careful,” he told me, his dark obs expressing a hypnotizing mixture of worry and leverage. “I’ve worked with a lot of criminal scoops, particularly ones related to drug smuggling and most turned out horrible.”_
> 
> _“H—hey, what’s with that troubled look?” I stammered at the beginning, unable to control my nervousness. I stepped back a little and gave myself a mental slap, trying to avoid his unfathomably piercing gaze but I couldn’t. “I’ll be just fine. I’m under the witness protection program of our nation’s Department of Justice, am I not?”_
> 
> _“True,” he said. “But you—”_
> 
> _“Now that this case has been taken care of by our city’s cops, let’s put our trust in them,” I assertively cut him short, on my tiptoes as I swung an arm around his shoulders because he was taller. “So why don’t we go grab some drinks?” I poked him in the ribs, flashing a playful grin.“Your treat, of course.”_
> 
> _“Eh, why...?”_
> 
> _“I know you got paid well from my scoop, dude.” I was secretly relieved to see his surprised face, because I would be in serious trouble once he fired statements and questions at me. If I had to lie to make him stop worrying about me, then I would do my best to act. “Time to give me credit for that, deal?”_
> 
> _“Sly as ever.”_
> 
> _I enthusiastically stretched my fingers and started counting. “I want ramen, sushi, a box of chocolates, dairy sweets, some street junk foods and—”_
> 
> _“Fine, Akihito, fine!” he interrupted me this time, shrugging me off as he turned to his DSLR camera to take some shots of the city. “Whatever you want!”_
> 
> _“Hey,” I called him. “L.”_
> 
> _“What again?” he replied sourly, focusing his interest only on the busy view of Shinjuku captured through the zoom lens of his camera. “I won’t approve costly shits. Don’t forget that we’re both still obliged to pay the monthly rent of our apartment.”_
> 
> _I smiled, admiring his very dear presence when he didn’t notice. “Kim Myung Soo.”_
> 
> _At the mention of his real name, the photographer quickly turned around and looked at me, completely nonplussed. I knew more than anyone else that he didn’t favor his own birth name, but when I called him with it, he knew that I was about to say something, very important. Suddenly, like a witch, I froze the time, the world — and the handsome man I had been growing up with._
> 
> _“Thank you.” I uncovered only a few levels deeper of me, just hoping that I wasn’t being too reckless to show him a little more than the sincere gratefulness I felt. Because I had a terrifying secret to keep until I die. “For everything.”_

“Who the hell is this Myung Soo? A Korean name?” Asami Ryuichi savagely ran his fingers through my hair, then yanked it. “How dare you call somebody else’s name?”

Tears escaped from my eyes, but I was furious at the ruthless man. Perhaps I fainted for a moment. I didn’t know how I moved from the bed to the floor. When I finally opened my eyes, I found bloodstained tiles and myself sprawling with my broken arm free from its support.

“Don’t want to answer, huh?”

I screamed in pain as he pulled me up, positioning me on my folded legs.

“I’m holding the reins of this lewd body of yours, Takaba Akihito,” he threatened. “Be grateful that I don’t stick a gun into your ass and blow you into pieces.”

“Egh— you bast—!”

I was suddenly interrupted by a large thing that entered my mouth. It disgusted me, but I quickly succumbed to a new wave of forbidden desire. I tried to call my sanity but failed, gradually responding to the superior force that slid on my tongue and slammed the wall of my throat with acceptance. I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed from asphyxiation, powerlessly holding onto the hand of the man that had a visual feast on my agony. Before long I felt the temperature rising significantly, unable to hide the sinful excitement that pounded harder below my stomach.

“That... yes... Akihito...” The sex god jerked his head back, basking in the ecstasy of the fellatio despite my amateurish methods. “Goddamn it... suck it more, yes...”

_Myung Soo... will you ever forgive me if you know what I’m doing now?_

“Will you thank me if I say that I’m willing to change my mind?” he asked feverishly, also in a curious tone. “As you wish, I won’t kill Asami-chan.”

I froze at his words, looking at him in disbelief.

“And I won’t kill you either,” he continued, his thumb brushing my wet poised lips. “Not yet, probably.”

All images blurring in my sight, I pulled myself back and said, “It’s not for free, is it?”

“Clever.”

“What do you fucking want from me?”

Asami Ryuichi stroked my face with the tips of his fingers. And I believed I was insane for thinking that there was a hint of kindness in his touch. Leaning down toward me, he whispered darkly, also seductively, “Be my dear _whore_.”

I thought I forgot to breathe normally, falling completely silent as my heart was depleted.

“I won’t repeat myself as I know you’ve heard it very clearly,” he said. “So what’s your reply? Akihito?”

The faces of my close friend and an innocent child slowly faded away. The sin tasted too sweet. And I always loved sweets. Without saying anything I returned to my previous pace, taking in the luscious penile thickness in front of me from its enlarged head to the hilt. I closed my eyes to the cruel reality, allowing the darkness to consume me as I hungrily dined on the inescapable temptation.

“Good boy.”

 

> _“Tou-san... it hurts so much, Tou-san... please stop...”_
> 
> _“Shut the fuck up, Akihito! Aren’t you going to be a good boy for your father?”_
> 
> _“... no, I can’t... no more...”_
> 
> _“Know what? In a few days someone will pick you up... someone who’s interested in pretty boys like you... and he’ll give me so much money...”_
> 
> _“No... no... Tou-san... forgive me...”_
> 
> _“There’s nothing to forgive, son. Instead, I should thank you for making me a rich man...”_
> 
> _“What... what do you mean... Tou-san... ah—”_
> 
> _“Before you’re taken away, I’ll feast on you to my heart’s content... you’re okay with that, right? Akihito? Isn’t it the son’s duty to make his parent happy? Beside that, you’ve got a sin to atone for... remember?”_

 

Sharp exhalation delivered me to consciousness. I shot up under a field of Renaissance art on the ceiling, in a familiar master bedroom where _the hell_ I remembered was manifested. A terrible headache suddenly hit me and I fell back to the large and soft base under me. As if I had run for miles, I panted to life, feeling so thirsty and disoriented, my memories all over the place. Covered in cold sweat, stark naked. With great pain spreading from my broken arm and leg. And from the spinal area down to my bottom.

“Nightmare?” A deep, curious voice immediately awakened my senses. “Was I in it?”

Curtains were still closed, blocking the brightness of the sun. I felt the side of the bed shake slightly from being pressed down. The duvet cover rustled. And I could smell a fresh scent of expensive cologne.

“It wasn’t about me?” Cunning, golden orbs invaded my system. Asami Ryuichi leaned over to me, perhaps being too strangely generous as he gave me a small smile that made my heart thump. The crime lord was already dressed in his immaculate formal business suit minus the coat; dark pants, a long-sleeved white shirt and a patterned necktie that screamed a top-of-the-line brand of designer clothing. The attire perfectly fit the shape and size of his body, pleasing me visually. And the leather black harness that was fastened around his shoulders and chest boasted the well-developed muscles behind the upscale fabric. I gulped hard, thirsting for water. And perhaps, also for something else I dared not allow. Undoubtedly, Asami Ryuichi was so well-groomed for someone who committed crimes in the dark. From head to toe, he was sexually attractive.

_Just what the fuck am I thinking!?_

I shifted my wary gaze from his mysterious eyes to the handgun in the small case located at the left side of his torso. And somehow I just had a terrifying idea to shoot myself instead of him.

“Did you cry, Akihito?” he asked me again, pressing his thumb against the wet evidence on my cheek.

Holding my tongue, I flipped my face to the side with distaste, avoiding his close examination.

“I have a question,” he tested me. “Are you always noisy when sleeping?” His hand, huge and dangerous, trailed down my neck to my stomach. “I heard you groan many times and—”

“Don’t touch me!” I caught the insolence by his wrist, blood pounding in my head.

Asami Ryuichi smiled cheekily at me. “Why are you in such a foul mood this morning?” he replied, pulling me closer to his presence for a French kiss.

“A... sa—!” I pushed him away, although knowing he would easily overpower me.

“I don’t intend to give you your freedom anymore, Akihito.” The older man was unrivaled, I noted that. My heart clenched as his eyes bored into mine. “You belong to me now.”

“I’M NOT YOUR POSSESSION!!!”

“Do you mean it? Are you aware that a certain child will lose her life because of your words?”

“You’re the lowest, Asami fuckin’ Ryuichi!”

In a matter of seconds my curses were gone, swallowed by beastly force as the naughty plump lips of the Japanese underworld ruler crashed against mine. I clenched my teeth in defiance, hitting his muscular arm, wriggling and literally doing anything for freedom, but unfortunately my pathetic attempt didn’t last long as I tired quickly and surrendered to his masterful tongue that relentlessly sought warmth from me, that tried to summon my inner demon. Wet noises from our passionate kisses, both excited and angry moans echoed faintly across the master bedroom, igniting a storm of fleshly desires that I couldn’t cope with anymore. Pain or whatever it was called disappeared from me as I was numbed by every mark he made on my body. I lost myself in the immoral sensations of pleasure; perhaps lost my memories too as I had become what I swore I would never be. I believed I wasn’t under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, but it was horrifyingly strange how the despicable bastard suddenly turned from a ruthless abductor to an addictive being. Blame the hormones and the craziness of that moment. I repeatedly opened and shut my eyes from wrong enjoyment as his tongue left visible traces, as his teeth made wanton patterns on my skin, as Asami Ryuichi ate me alive.

Like a child I helplessly clung to his bigger form, breathing in the intoxicating smell of his body. I cursed him, I welcomed his heat too. It felt like I was torn into two opposing poles. After pushing me down the majestic devil brushed up and down my abs with his lips, until they found their final stop on the most anticipating part of my body. At that very second I already lost the strength to push him away. When his entire mouth engulfed my rock-hard erection, all I could do was holding back my scream as I messed his sleek hair. And I didn’t want him to stop. I even almost begged him to do me faster, but I was saved in the nick of time by the last remnant of my conscience and no words were spit out. The raven-haired older man could see through me surprisingly, spoiling me with exceptional methods that proclaimed his unquestionable expertise in bed business. Soon I held my breath and climaxed, emptying myself in his mouth. And what came to me after that was nothing but shame. Self-hatred. I glimpsed him smiling, but I no longer cared if he sneered at me or felt the sinful satisfaction too.

After we kissed and shared the taste of my release, Asami Ryuichi said, “See?” He gulped, flashing a smug grin at me. “Every inch of your body is mine and mine alone.” “Be grateful that you’re at my mercy, Takaba Akihito.”

I turned my face away, eyes shut, gradually returning from hyperventilation. “Why don’t you just— kill me?”

“Perhaps later,” he answered guiltlessly. “After you outlive your usefulness.”

“Fuckin’ treating me like a damn piece of property...” I straightened up my spine and stared at him unblinkingly, anger burning in my chest. In normal circumstances I would have already broken his jaw for blurting out such obnoxiousness. And in normal circumstances too, I thought I would have already been found dead with a bullet in my skull. Tragically, nothing was _normal_ since the beginning. Even I wasn’t being my normal self. “WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, ASAMI?!”

“It’s up to me what I want to do to you. I own your body and soul.”

“You—” My voice disappeared in an instant. An innocent child lying in a white-painted hospital room reminded me why I came face-to-face with the crime lord.

“This is the point of no return, Akihito,” he said with a lascivious smile. It really terrified me how he seemed like he never felt enough. “In the end you’ll see that there’s nowhere to run away to.” He landed his hand on my shoulder, noticing my shivers from his proximity to me. “An _angel_ with broken wings, just surrender yourself.”

I remained silent, eminently intimidated by guilt and fear of losing my grip.

Granting me the personal space I needed, Asami Ryuichi rose to his feet and walked toward a full-length mirror. “My private doctor will see you in an hour,” he said, fixing the mess I caused on his head. “Be a good boy when I’m not around, will you?”

“A doctor?” I replied with a high tone of incredulity. “For what?”

“I believe the four limbs have great worth for an underground fighter like you.” The notorious six-footer stopped from whatever he was trying to do and looked back at me. Groomed or not, Asami Ryuichi was gorgeous like hell. “Am I wrong?” he looked for my opinion.

“What’s with that sudden act of kindness?”

“I never favor damage on my property.”

“The hell,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“Do I look like a fuckin’ clown to you?”

“After tormenting me day and night, what’s the point of fixing the damage you’ve caused?” I retorted. “So far as I remember, I never plead for that!”

“Indeed,” he replied, unfazed. “You’re stubborn and fearless, catching my eye in an instant surprisingly.” His lips curved up into a sensual smile. “As if I’m hunting a wild animal.”

I furiously squeezed the duvet cover, asking, “How many whores have fallen for your honeyed rotten words?”

“I do not count.”

There was a sharp twinge in my chest and I didn’t think it was the consequence of the foreplay he did to me. Breathing remorsefully I gazed down and tried to remember again who I was, realizing how deep I had fallen into the abyss of sin. I was born a sinner not an angel, I knew it, but I had promised myself to help people as much as I could. Not without a reason. I always believed that karma existed. Good karma, bad karma. It was such a sad irony however, that one of those sincere deeds brought me to the lowest level of life instead. I didn’t know which was worse: to have a bullet in my head or watch in powerlessness as my freedom was taken away by the enemy.

“Right.” Sitting on the edge of a sculpted table, Asami Ryuichi triumphantly folded his arms across his broad chest and enjoyed my miserable look. “Try to break the chains off, Akihito. Try your best to punch me in the face or bite me,” he said “Keep me excited that way.”

“I bet your gracious life must be boring like hell!” I exploded. Unfortunately, I had nothing to throw at him.

“That’s why it’s your duty to keep me warm and lively in bed. Remember that you now belong to this supreme hell of mine.” After taking what seemed to be a neat pile of garments on an armchair, the crime lord returned to me, intimidating me with his piercing golden orbs. I could feel my pulses accelerating from fucking nervousness. “Remember that...” he smiled suggestively. “I will never let go of you, Takaba Akihito.”

“What the hell—!” I defied him as soon as he took my wrist. “... are you doing!?”

“Dress you.”

“I’m not your fuckin’ doll!” I threw a tantrum at him. “Leave me—”

“Don’t you want to make yourself presentable for Oda sensei?” he cut me short, sliding his hand down my chest. “I’m just helping you, as you can see. With that broken arm and apparently fractured leg, you can’t even leave this bed on your own.”

“Then goddamn stop touching me everywhere!”

“My bad,” he apologized. And I knew that he wasn’t serious. “Can’t help it... seeing this bare, beautiful body.”

To my surprise, Asami Ryuichi stood up with his enticing eyes fixed at me, unexpectedly unfastening the leather straps that contained his handgun. I held my breath in complete perplexity, unable to read his mind although I could find dirty thoughts from the way he looked at me. Next, he took off his necktie and left it carelessly on the floor, just like he did to his shoulder holsters. So clueless, I watched him without knowing what to say. He rolled his sleeves up, then undid the buttons on his shirt — from the top, _three_ buttons out of six — revealing his perfect chest muscles.

“Wha—what the hell are you doing?” I questioned the older man stutteringly, disapprovingly, panicking as soon as he moved the duvet cover from the bed to the floor only with one fierce pull. My nakedness was exposed and suddenly, I was against the gravity, lifted by his powerful arms.

“Now that I think about it...” he grinned wantonly. “You need a proper bath first, Akihito.”

“Put me down, Asami!” I protested. And gained nothing from it. “You’re a motherfucking son of a demon!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a big fan of “Grace Period is Over” by KomakiTigerDrop and “Business as Usual” by Kadzuki_Fuchoin, undoubtedly inspired by these amazing works so hence this fanfiction. But, of course, all greatest honor and gratitude are given to Yamane Ayano sensei—one of the world’s amazing artists who has brought the famous yaoi manga “Finder Series” to life. How long have I been a fujoshi? I don’t really care, but Asami Ryuichi is always my first and biggest seme crush! Countless yaoi manga, manhwa and anime have almost simultaneously been published during the past few years (I love Yuri on Ice, Junjou Romantica, Super Lovers, Ten Count, Blood Bank, Killing Stalking, any many more), but “Finder Series” is forever irreplaceable for me because of the thrilling story and Yamane Ayano sensei’s stunning art (particularly, the hot hot hot “smutty scenes”—kyaaaaaaaa, I’m such a pervert! XD). I have only been re-reading the manga online and re-watching the OVAs, also surfing the internet to find entertaining fanfictions about my beloved crime lord and his cute photographer. But “Grace Period is Over” and “Business as Usual” are beyond my expectation and these fanfictions make me want to create one too. I hesitated at first because I didn’t think I could perfectly write and build very absorbing plots like KomakiTigerDrop and Kadzuki_Fuchoin did, but I finally decided to take the challenge. 
> 
> I am not an English native speaker as you can clearly see ^^ (*nervous*), so please excuse the mess while I continue to learn to improve my linguistic competence. In this fanfiction, I write using the first POV, which is our handsome Uke Takaba Akihito’s perspective. This is because I’m afraid if I can’t be good enough to narrate the the action-packed plots that are always the main elements of Finder Series other than—cough, cough—the sex. Indeed, I intend to develop the story with a psychological approach (?), such as describing what Takaba Akihito feels, thinks and how he perceives the world and communicates with other characters. There will be more dramas, and perhaps there will be angst too because my writing style tends to gradually flow to those directions. So if you crave a lot of actions, I suggest you don’t pick this fanfiction. Oh, did I say “angst”? XD Hey, don’t worry, I will neither kill Asami Ryuichi nor Takaba Akihito since they’re my most precious protagonists. However, they might be quite OOC because a few changes in their personalities are needed to develop the story; which, you might agree or not. And because this fanfiction has its setting in an alternate universe (alternative reality), don’t be surprised if you find a bunch of names of male K-Pop idols because I’m a K-Pop fan and I just can’t stop myself from writing with these crazy ideas. So please forgive the ridiculous side of me, because “Original Characters” involved in this fanfiction are actually (mostly) derived from these real superstars.


	2. Blood, Sweat and Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Akihito realized that his freedom was illusory and sins were inescapably sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really, really long. It contains +14K words in total, ready? (*smile creepily with panda eyes*) This corresponds to the 3rd chapter of the original manga by Yamane Ayano sensei, titled "Embrace The Heat of The Night".
> 
> It hasn't been proofread, guys, so I apologize for grammatical errors and awkward wordings. I will try to fix these mistakes in the future... (once I recover from this headache from writing too much ^^). And wow, thank you very much for all the support, criticism and kudos given to the very first chapter of this story. I feel very encouraged.
> 
> Beware of lots of K-Pop references in this fanfiction :) (*laugh shamelessly*)

 

* * *

 

**_It was crazy good. I was an idiot addicted to sweetness. I didn’t want to let go of the devil’s hand._ **

**_Too bad, but it’s too sweet. It’s too evil._ **

_\- "Boy Meets Evil" (BTS) -_

 

* * *

 

Yoyogi Park, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Unremembered date, month and year. I thought I had lost my sense of time, but it was a very nice afternoon with warm weather. I sat alone on a grassy ground facing a beautiful pond, resting myself against a cherry blossom tree. Perfect harmony in the nature. Momentary isolation. I had been too long in the dark I felt numb under the shade of the benevolent city. Suicidal thoughts growled in my head each time I closed my eyes, but I didn’t want to succumb to their gruesome lies anymore although it was true that I felt dead inside. The damage wasn’t the first time anyway. Too many devils since the day I was sent to this depraved world, too much pain from falling into shame and horror of the grand mystery in life, but I somehow managed to survive in what seemed to result from perpetual misfortune and bless. I closed my eyes again and the disembodied evil voices were still there in the darkness.

My faith was fading and forgiveness was all I could hope for.

 

> _Kirishima Kei. For a Japanese man, he was much taller than the average height of the nation’s men but only a few inches shorter than Asami Ryuichi. A man of slimmer build but sturdy, with short dark hair and glacial brown eyes. I just got a slightly eerie feeling that the bespectacled man and his iron-fisted employer was of the same age, but his strong rectangular face shape and a few wrinkles spotted around his forehead area and the outer corners of his eyes made him look five years older than the latter. Using the most formal level of language he straightfacedly introduced himself as the secretary of the CEO of the Sion Group, so neat and clean in a fine-tailored black suit, but his smart and clean-cut appearance was a total load of bullshit to me. I would always remember Kirishima Kei as one of Asami Ryuichi’s grim reapers. An inexpressive executioner, whose hands reeked of unforgivable sins and gruesome secrets._
> 
> _“Takaba Akihito,” he uttered what he read in the file that contained my biography. His voice almost sounded robotic from the flatness that I could believe if he was some kind of a brainwashing product or something. We faced each other across a hand-carved antique table, but the humongous distance between our beliefs were obvious. The fact that he was far my senior in terms of maturity and social class didn’t change anything; he didn’t deserve my respect. “Twenty three. Type O.”_
> 
> _There was a frigid atmosphere in the grand living room of the penthouse suit. I watched the way he looked at the information presented on the paper, in silent fury recalling how he, without guilt and pity, killed people as if he eliminated street rats. I felt something heavy in my chest, my blood boiling inside, lips so dry and pressed shut as I continued to wonder if he actually had a heart. If I faced a human or not. If looks could kill, I believed I would be convicted to murder of Kirishima Kei._
> 
> _“Parents, deceased.”_
> 
> _I didn’t lower my gaze as the hard-faced secretary glanced at me quizzically. Since the first minute I sat on the Italian-designed leather sofa I told myself I wouldn’t let this weird geezer win our mental battle. The world I lived in belonged to me. My past, my present, my future. A mere stranger like Kirishima Kei didn’t know what I had been through despite pages of data in his hands. It pissed me off as I pondered how the bad guys found the records of my personal matters without my permission, but I could clearly see that they were very skilled at playing detectives too. Dirty methods, lawful methods, I didn’t give a damn about what they tried to achieve. I survived one more day not to allow the devils to intimidate me. Not today. Sooner or later — I was either alive or dead — the blindfolded goddess of justice would get them._
> 
> _“From a private orphanage in Okutama, before finally moving to Musashino, Setagaya, and the last, reside in a rental apartment in Sasazuka, Shibuya.”_
> 
> _The bespectacled secretary expected an affirmative response from the way he made regular intervals, and I felt inwardly pleased that he only got the pin drop silence he deserved. I didn’t need to explain anything; to nod or shake my head like a fearful idiot. My life was nobody’s business. And I didn’t think my lame biography would bring any benefit to the Sion Group, let alone Asami Ryuichi’s underworld empire. I couldn’t understand these bastards, really. About a week ago they abducted me and it was very likely that I would end up dead, but then I found myself covered in sweat and unbearable shame being devoured by the sick Alpha male. Now they sat me down for a psychology game, researching my life and perhaps my mind too. What did they actually want from me? Was my body the mere reason why Asami Ryuichi spared me? The very taste of humiliation when the remorseless kingpin turned me into a whore left complete bitterness in my soul. I once heard some people say that unforgiveness had been classified in medical books as a disease, but I didn’t mind being sick and rotten because fuck that — I would never forgive Asami Ryuichi._
> 
> _“An experienced part-timer at various stores, cafés, restaurants and—” he suddenly paused, pushing up his glasses. I remained stoical, quietly anticipating. “A gay bar.” The present note in the completion of his previous sentence wasn’t close to be surprise; I knew that. My eyes twitched from exasperation as our eye contact lasted for another minute. Despite his serious expression, I could catch concealed disdain in his brown orbs and it was quite an arduous struggle to prevent myself from jumping down his throat. “Been one of the instructors in a Taek Won Do school,” he continued after looking back to the printed information, after gaining nothing but constant sullenness on my face. “And secretly, an underground kickboxer for the illegal ring in Circle Code.” Then I saw his interest for the very first time. I smirked at him, hiding the disbelief as to how they could find out the dangerous activity that I had been keeping under wraps. “So you know martial arts?”_
> 
> _“Only coward sons of bitches use weapons,” I replied with the deadly cold tone that I used only to people who got on my nerves. And I couldn’t believe myself. Had I become conceited just because Asami Ryuichi wouldn’t kill me just yet? Falling into a bad temper, and half hopeless about the situation, I lost all the drive to reason with myself. After acting like a silent defender for almost half an hour, I somehow felt good from the outburst of emotions. Fear was always there to remind me of its presence, but I was too dejected to let it take over. “Wanna try me out sometime?” I challenged him. Perhaps the most stupid thing I had ever said. “Hand-to-hand?” Indeed, I was so drunk from abhorrence. “I bet I can crush your balls in one kick.”_
> 
> _“For a pathetic brat, you sure have the sickening guts to provoke the one who gave you his mercy.” The serious look on his slightly craggy face remained unchanged, but his voice sounded heavy with malice. “I wonder if you could talk shit like that if the boss broke all of your four limbs instead of just two.”_
> 
> _Insultingly, I asked him,“Do you sons of bitches always have so much fun in firing at people, cutting their bellies open and kicking their dead bodies into the sea?” I looked at the secretary with a mirthless laugh. “What the hell is wrong with our law?” Revengeful, I tilted my head to the right side and ignored the fact that he kept a gun behind his coat, giving the edge of the leather sofa I was sitting on a long squeeze until it screeched_ _ominously. “This nation must have been as fucking sick as you bastards to let you freely roam, while there are many innocent scapegoats out there spending very long sentences in the imprisonment for nasty crimes they didn’t even commit.”_
> 
> _My contempt collided with his indifference. I watched his reticent lips, waiting for his rough voice although the heated silence itself was already a response. The strict secretary continued to learn the printed information, as if intentionally leaving me distressed. And I was aware I was trying to pull a gun on myself by blurting out some plain speaking, but the fiery and reckless spirit of youth, in fact, never ceased although my teenage phase had long passed._
> 
> _“Hey,” I smashed the complete absence of sounds, infuriated, “I was asking.”_
> 
> _Giving me a stony glare, Kirishima Kei said, “I’m not obliged to answer your every question.”_
> 
> _That geezer finally spoke. I let my breath out in a triumphant exhalation. I told myself I was insane to test his patience, but I felt a sense of accomplishment each time I saw the tight muscles on his face reacted to my words. I wondered what he was thinking: Would he slap me on the mouth? Would he pull out his gun and shoot me? Noisy thoughts in my head got my adrenaline going. I didn’t plan to make this Q-and-A session easy for him. “Fine. I’ll keep asking you then.” I launched my first attack. “Kirishima-san, I honestly think that you don’t have the face of a criminal,” I said with a smirk. Fortunately they didn’t drug me, so I could develop a strategy to deal with that bespectacled man. I should have felt sheer fear before the member of Asami Ryuichi’s death squad, but my brain worked strangely instead. Trapped in the lion’s den, I felt oddly exhilarated. “I don’t think you’re a blind fool either,” I continued, leaning forward to deliver a clearer message. “What made you side with the evil?”_
> 
> _As I expected, Kirishima Kei remained silent. I knew that what I saw was pretend nonchalance, nonetheless._
> 
> _“Do you have a family somewhere?” I asked him again._
> 
> _No reply._
> 
> _Shifting on the leather sofa, I attempted to breathe down his neck. The only problem was the hand-carved table between us. And also, oh, the broken leg that made me unable to move freely. “How long have you been that demon Asami’s lapdog?”_
> 
> _“With all due respect, Boss,” Kirishima Kei suddenly closed the file with a gruff sigh and the expression of someone who had had enough of bullshit, turning his cold gaze to the third presence leaning against the frame of the door behind me,“are you sure you let this punk live?” he gave a piece of advice instead of asking, pushing up his glasses. “He’s seen much. And talked too much.”_
> 
> _I immediately lost the steady rhythm of my breath and tensed from the unexpected monologue, then looked back with a hard gulp, sensing a foreboding. With arms folded across his well-sculpted chest, the CEO of the Sion Group and the lord of Japanese underworld terrified me with an amused grin from the threshold. All the fun from verbally assaulting Kirishima Kei was suddenly gone from me. I chickened out on my position, finally giving the chance for the fear to creep back into me. Holy shit, how could I not realize that he had been there?_
> 
> _A Dunhill cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth, Asami Ryuichi said, “An untamed cub always give the thrills, does it not?” Bizarre satisfaction radiated from his strong, golden orbs._

I was between the tragedy and what I thought to be the desire to overcome. On the sidewalk I struggled to move forward, to lead myself home and never look back again. Although ironically, I could still hear the heartbreaking rattle of chains in my head. I was pathetic through and through, longing for the hands that I could always hold onto when I trembled in the sheer feeling of hating myself. Various shapes of people appeared before my eyes in the form of undefinable flashes as if they moved at breakneck speed, while it seemed like I was the only one rejected and deserted in confused and unhappy silence, so clueless about what actually happened in my surroundings. Then I continued to look ahead and move and with every step, my limbs hurt me more and more. But I wouldn’t stop, although my body felt unbearably heavy and it seemed nearly paralyzed. In front of me was a group of young tourists and I noticed when one of them broke the law. Intentional negligence. Together with her friends, the girl in a black tank top and a denim miniskirt walked past me as if nothing ever happened. I, too, continued to push myself forward as if I didn’t see anything. Until I then suddenly came to a perplexing halt, asking myself why there was a bothersome twinge in my chest. I looked back then down at an empty carton of milk. Of two choices to ignore the garbage or pick it up although it wasn’t mine, rather instinctively I sided with the latter. Unfathomably, the unpleasant feeling began to cease.

Too nice of me? Or ridiculously and pitifully stupid?

Not long after I turned back and approached the carton of milk to drop it to a nearby public trash can, the answer came to me. I was about to lean down when I heard people screaming hysterically not far away from my position, followed by ear-splitting screeches of brakes and the friction of tires against the asphalted road. I straightened up my back and stared fixedly at the sudden omen of an inescapable calamity in stunned stillness. It was _closer_ rapidly. It was coming to me with complete destructive force. I held my breath as my blood ran cold. And I thought my heart ceased to beat. If I continued to carry the guilt from ignoring the illegal mistake and never looked back, would there be a different consequence? If I continued to carry the guilt from not helping a dying man and never turned around that night, would I ever meet Asami Ryuichi face-to-face?

 

> _Enough. I’d had enough of the same contradictory shits my brain had been feeding me on every fucking, single day. That I was dead meat being 24/7 supervised by hand-picked people who knew how to explode someone’s head from miles away with one shot; that death by gunshots or evisceration or decapitation or whatever method their evil instinct preferred was far more glorious than a second chance of life granted by the supreme devil; that before the elite gangsters I was nothing more than just a helpless civilian despite my practical knowledge of martial arts and pickpocketing; that I should have given that psycho ass-fucker called Asami Ryuichi a round of retaliation or more instead of resigning myself to the enslavement as his wretched mistress; that it was okay sometimes to completely abandon humanity; that it was the right thing to follow what my heart said; that I was fucking blessed to be alive; that in fact I was really as lucky as a dead mongoose. Many thoughts, no action. Echoing plans in my head, but reality wasn’t as simple as what I tried to make myself believe in. Anxiety hit me more often in the utter absence of people and sounds and hope. If inanimate objects could talk, a few corners of the large but lifeless suite, the Persian rugs and even the king-sized bed would tell the tale about real agony that led me to lunacy. I was stuck in the foreign luxury and lingering traces of my heartless abductor’s rich scents that I began to get used to, awaiting a resolution to these convoluted nightmares, longing for the gentle lulling smells of my medicine._
> 
> _When I was told that someone was waiting for me on the line, I thought my funereal world had really turned upside down. Perhaps I had vomited too much, including my rationality. I believed the cocksure crime lord kept me away from any means of access, but when he expectantly handed his cellphone over to me, I gulped hard at his disconcerting smile. Since the first day of captivity and torture never once did I see his sculpted face contorted with strong emotions such as rage, but his piercing dark golden orbs and inscrutable smiles did speak volumes for his inner demons. For his unforgiving and unfeeling nature. Asami Ryuichi was a man of complete unpredictability. Manipulative, unmatched — at least by someone like me. Even his hard-faced bespectacled secretary wasn’t close to be as intimidating as the boss. Asami Ryuichi, this beguiling bastard, seemed to have the black magic that incapacitated me, that turned me into a pathetic weakling who was afraid of his own shadow. This Alpha monster was the very same person who shook hands with influential people in charity-oriented parties; the villain who was also the hero. Two sides, separated by day and night, by the light and darkness, by facts and delusions. I found myself unable to wake up from this nightmare, jailed by the twist of fate that linked me to the top of Japanese underworld hierarchy._
> 
> _“Akihito!”_
> 
> _Soon as a gravely voice of an adult male went through me, I felt my hair stand on end. My dry throat suddenly itched with desperation. A ray of hope or not, I didn’t care. I had been kidnapped and beaten senseless and drugged and fucked and threatened and fucked again. I needed the whole world to take me out of this hellish routine. The urge to scream myself hoarse was numbing, but when I was about to open my mouth, I heard trembles and stutters that signified mortal dread. Something was totally wrong. From the beginning until the end, I pricked up my ears for someone whom I could only recognize from his voice, but not the tone it had. I furrowed my brow at the news that reached me, forehead beaded with sweat. For a few seconds I was breathless, my stomach churning as the concepts of truth and lies turned obscure and confusing. I almost dropped the diamond-studded cellphone from disbelief, pointlessly trying to remember where the last time I left my anti-depressants when the tight madness in my chest started to feel like thorns. Then I heard a click. End of call._
> 
> _Turning my shocked gaze to the avid observer sitting behind his grand executive desk, I made my demand, “Tell me what you did to Uncle Chai.”_
> 
> _“Excuse me?”_
> 
> _“I know you’ve blackmailed that fat old man.” Confusion, fear, anger — they grew equally and gave birth to a new wave of courage. “And the reason is?”_
> 
> _“If you’re talking about Chaiprasit Kittikorn, he’s nothing but a worthless pawn,” replied the older man with a hint of smug self-satisfaction in his voice, flicking off the ash of his Dunhill into a shiny black ashtray in front of him. “I don’t see the benefit of blackmailing a lowly fucker like him.” He then changed the way he bored into me from his throne, leaning over to drop his elbows on the polished surface, broad chest against the edge of the desk, arms bent up, the left hand tucked under the right one, a half-smoked de luxe cigar waiting between his index and middle finger. Those dark, golden eyes glinted with something that infuriated me. Something that I believed to be mockery. “Doing that will be a complete waste of time,” he added._
> 
> _“So blackmailing me is okay?!” I snapped._
> 
> _Asami Ryuichi gave his temple a light scratch with his thumb, then flashed a small, humorless smirk at me through the haze of cigarette smoke._
> 
> _“You’re fucking sick, Asami!” I spat. If I didn’t consider how much Yen the diamond-studded device that I furiously clasped might be worth, I would have sent it flying right at the smug face of the crime lord. There was a flourishing acrimonious atmosphere in the home office located at the back of the penthouse suite. Just too late to play safe. Fear was only in my mind as I riveted a glare on the majestic bastard. “Using the most polite level of language, Uncle Chai suddenly told me that he’s cleared up my old debt and next— you know what?!” I shook my head in disbelief. “He promised to give me back all the money I’d won in the past few years!” The ridiculously overdecorated cellphone did fly. It landed safely however, on the other part of the L-shaped leather couch I was sitting on. Asami Ryuichi’s expression never changed; phlegmatic and observant. The kind of image I wanted to rip apart. I could feel the temperature rising within me, blood pounding harder on my face and ears, erratic pulses drumming in my rib cage. “Did I hear it wrong?!” Hoarseness coated my voice. “Fuck all of your men who had hit my head real hard!” I was short of breath from fury, convinced that the human demon in front of me was the mastermind behind the strange happenings._
> 
> _Asami Ryuichi smiled, much to my surprise, never averting his predatory gaze from me. Asami motherfucking Ryuichi smiled a smile of someone who was so amused, engrossed in the entertainment of his most favorite fetish. I even believed that he bit the inside of his mouth to hold back a laugh. Did I really look that silly and funny — and engrossing?_
> 
> _“All things he’s said... is that all even true?!” I raised my voice again. Normally, to a total jerk like the crime lord, only my hands and legs spoke through punches and kicks. “I mean—” A brief pause, just before an outburst of anger. “I’m talking about my Thai guardian-promoter here! That selfish, treacherous, greedy, foul-mouthed, furry-chested fat-ass!” I took a sharp intake of breath after the explosion of the long-standing restrained feelings, only momentarily relieved before the veins in my neck tightened again and pressed against my skin. “He’s the same sick bastard who has tricked me into his nasty game, blackmailed me and robbed me of my winnings!” I bawled, completely losing my cool. “And just now, he fucking said that I didn’t need to pay off my debt anymore and would even return my money?!” I gave that calm bastard an accusatory glare, envisaging his involvement. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”_
> 
> _Sounds of a wall clock ticking took over as I fell silent._
> 
> _“Wait a minute...” I gasped from a jolt of realization in my head. “How do you even know Uncle Chai’s full name?”_
> 
> _The human demon didn’t smile or say anything, smoking his Dunhill in grim anticipation of the climax of the fun._
> 
> _“Don’t tell me—”_
> 
> _“Akihito,” he finally let out his deep voice, calling me with an authoritative tone that sent shivers down my spine. “You don’t know that Circle Code is in my territory?”_
> 
> _“Ah...” I dropped my gaze from mental exhaustion. “It makes sense now...” Stupid fantasy or not, I thought I saw stars circling around my head. Or perhaps it was just the inevitable corollary of my thumping headache. Sitting limply on the leather couch I tried to steady my breath and nerves, giving myself a break from the shock of Asami Ryuichi being the true ruler of Circle Code. When I felt ready for another chapter of verbal attacks, I returned a sour look to the emperor of Sion dynasty. “Why the fuck, Asami? Why did you this to me!?” I asked, psychologically wrestling against his magisterial presence. “Did you really believe that I’ll kneel down before you and say thank you?”_
> 
> _“Kneel down?” His sly grin developed. “That sounds interesting.”_
> 
> _I shook my head as I looked away from him, so sick — or maybe scared — of all unforeseen tricks in the way he gazed and smiled at me._
> 
> _“You earn what you deserve,” he continued. “That’s simply business, Akihito.”_
> 
> _“So you mean I’m lucky?”_
> 
> _“If not, then what?” I glowered at the expensive puff of smoke he blew into the air. “Of all unfortunate names in my must-be-eliminated list, you’re the only one I spared and even pet on my warm bed,” he referred to the sinful session of pain and pleasure. “Weren’t you lucky?”_
> 
> _“Thank you... fucking much,” I said through clenched teeth, eyes fixed at the flapping curtains._
> 
> _Asami Ryuichi collectedly put out the tobacco_ _product, crushing it into the ashtray. My heart was in my mouth when he stood up. I tried to conceal my panic the moment I ended our eye contact, fingers folded into a tight ball in the desperate attempt to stop the goddamn fidgets. “This surprises me too,” he responded with a genuine emotion that underlined his statement. “I was on the hunt for what was stolen from me but unexpectedly got a grand prize instead.” When the crime lord finally stopped and stood in front of me, he asked, “Don’t you think you’re fated to meet me, Akihito?”_
> 
> _“To hell with you.” I still refused to look up at him, so unease in the shade of his towering presence. If I turned, my eyes would be at the same level with his crotch and to me, it really was an omen of bad luck. “Did other whores of yours get the same privileges too?” I grunted._
> 
> _Grabbing my face, he said, “Jealous much?”_
> 
> _I slapped his hand off my face in silent fury, looking up into his fathomless eyes until a rougher response brought the bad news to my resistance._
> 
> _“I once heard my men talk about the seemingly rising star of the Circle Code ring.” Asami Ryuichi locked my jaw between his large thumb and the rest of his right hand’s fingers. I made quite a commotion as I tried to push him away, but it didn’t last long after the menacing air around him started to infiltrate me. “Fierce and indomitable, so I heard,” he chuckled, trifling with my defiance. “The third strongest fighter, face disguised with bandages,” he said. “The youngest one called Dark Angel.”_
> 
> _I held my breath as my alias slipped out of his wicked lips._
> 
> _“Circle Code is a nasty place — full of ugly gamblers, gutless vermin and the most useless kind of people. It never suits my taste,” he continued. “Should I know Circle Code keeps a commodity of the finest quality like this, I will pay a visit more often.”_
> 
> _Unblinking, I stared up at him with all the might to resist subjugation by the tyrannical being, but my mind ended up betraying me. The way his lip curled lasciviously caused a strange stir within me. I wanted to shout at him but nothing came out of my mouth. Only hitched breathing. Strong smells of tobacco and expensive cologne spread into me through my crumbling defense. And before long, I found myself intoxicated by the tantalizing gleam in his unwavering gaze, hallucinating like a junkie, lost in the paralyzing memories of our wrong intimacy._
> 
> _“Asami!” I shrieked when he suddenly squeezed my face. “Let go of me!” I wrapped my hand around his wrist, frantically trying to stop the dangerous force. “It hurts!”_
> 
> _“Of course. I make it hurt,” he smiled creepily. “So you won’t forget whom you belong to.”_
> 
> _“Asa—!”_
> 
> _I burst into uncontrollable insanity when Asami Ryuichi pushed me back and claimed my lips. His hand on the side of my neck was warm and passionate, keeping me nailed on the leather couch as he obsessively turned the distance between us into infinite connection. Anger, excitement, sadness, guilt. I didn’t know what I felt anymore because I was so overwhelmed by the sweet and bitter taste of nicotine from the greedy edges of his mouth. I retreated into complete darkness and the presence of our intertwining fleshly energy, being repeatedly bitten, licked, sucked, silenced by his aggressive lips until it hurt so much. Until I was deafened by my own erratic heartbeats, unconsciously taking part in his suffocating immoral game as I swallowed down our juicy sins that filled my mouth. Until my mind went blank, completely cleared by the rising wave of pleasure when his tongue penetrated me savagely._
> 
> _“... Asa... mi...” I slurred as our lips parted, unable to contain myself, a dribble of saliva running from the corner of my mouth._
> 
> _“You owe me big time, ” he said with a threatening emphasis, his hot breath brushing across my face. “Whatever happens, you’re coming with me, Akihito... even to the depths of hell.”_
> 
> _Agony blurred my sight all of a sudden, intensifying as the devil’s hands wrapped around my neck. Without oxygen, all I could see was his remorseless, amused face. From pleasure to complete horror, he ruled. From the seventh heaven to the floor of hell, he show me who he really was. “A— sa—!” A gurgle in my throat, I let out incoherent sounds, desperately clawing at his warm flesh, tears welling up in my eyes in the biological stage of dying. “I can’t— breathe—”_
> 
> _“Good.” Asami Ryuichi took everything away from me: freedom, on top of it all. I was reminded of a few ghosts in my childhood. Not the kind of ghosts that hovered in the darkest, filthiest places like old cemeteries or deserted hospitals. Mine were real; not the wraith-like figures in white floating dress. They had eyes — foul and bleary most of the times, from alcohol or dope — that delved into my soul to find my weakness and crush every good feeling I had. They had the most venomous mouths that would leave me with nothing but self-destructive emotions once they talked. And they had hands, to chain me up to despair and drown me under the worst nightmares. To me, humans with flesh and blood were the real ghosts. Monsters in disguise. Now Asami Ryuichi had become one of them. “Fear me more,” he said._
> 
> _The probability of me getting killed from the strangulation rapidly increased. I thoughtlessly fought back during the uninterrupted period of excruciating inflicted pain, knowing that I already reached my last minutes of living, eyes seeking revenge in the unaffected golden spheres as I growled at the evil creature with my fading strength. To my horror, the crime lord had a smile on his face, a silent laugh, but what he did was sickeningly beyond a joke. I tugged at his tie, resisting, cursing, until my airway was suddenly set free and I coughed so terribly that hoarseness led me to another breaking point. P_ _ain-racked,_ _I stopped resisting after I could finally breathe and then noticed depraved contentment on Asami Ryuichi’s face. If the devil was once an angel, I wondered what this man had been through that he became such an abusive sadist. Could it be the poison of the underworld? Or something else? But what was much worse than the lust for power and money and all things this corrupted world could offer?_
> 
> _Heavy breathing rasping in my chest, I pressed the palm of my hand against where I could feel harder and wilder knocks, trying to assuage the motherfucking scaredy cat in me. Asami Ryuichi already returned to his executive desk, weirdly taking my crutch with him, but it wasn’t difficult to see that he had something in his head. Something unholy. An idea that would leave a bad taste in my mouth again, most likely._
> 
> _“Come to me,” he said guiltlessly, a moment after he settled himself down on the ergonomic chair of a well-known brand I couldn’t say._
> 
> _The unapologetic look he wore really set my teeth on edge. “After what you fucking did to me, Asami Ryuichi!?”_
> 
> _I didn’t get a reply, let alone a word of sorry. The never-failing scumbag stared at me intensely in a way that made my blood curdle. Strong emotions, indeed, were futile against him and such a perplexing phenomenon made me think that he might never be a human from the start. If horns suddenly grew on his head and that hypnotizing sexiness turned into a grotesque sight, I didn’t think I would be surprised. After quite a long extended episode of mental battle, I found myself undermined by the imperious air around him. He didn’t even need to remind me that my obedience determined the life of an innocent child, who didn’t even fucking know what I had been through to keep her safe. It, indeed, cost too much — sometimes I thought it was better to die with pride than to live with shame._
> 
> _“You took my goddamn crutch!” I snarled at him. “Give it back first, moron!”_
> 
> _“Just come,” he smiled inscrutably. “You won’t even need it.”_
> 
> _Fuck, fuck, fuck. Much to my own surprise, my functional leg hauled me up from the couch, as if it had been programmed to do so. I hesitated after I stood up however, glowering at the older man who obviously derived pleasure from awful things he put me through. Beckoning me over with his finger, Asami Ryuichi flashed a peremptory smile and waited as I remained still with anger multiplying in me like a disease. I gulped hard, I gritted my teeth, I wanted to kill him with any way possible, but all the plans stayed theoretical instead of turning into real actions. And soon I succumbed again to the absolute domination of my enemy who had been cracking the whip. I falteringly dragged my small jump in the arduous struggle to move, preventing pain from being expressed because each time he looked more pleased, I swore I felt a real stab deeper through my chest. Three minutes of the unequipped attempt felt like eternity, and my body reached its limit at the wrong time. I stumbled and fell on the shiny tiles, shell-shocked, free-falling into the lowest form of a total waste of space._
> 
> _Dark golden eyes as lethal as bullets, Asami Ryuichi showed no compassion as I employed my self-hatred to recover from the fall. Folding his arms across his chest, he artfully quoted, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” I shot a glare at him, making sure he saw my murderous intention. “Martin Luther King Jr,” he continued. “Ever heard that before?”_
> 
> _I remained silent, unimpressed although it was the first time he sounded like a normal mature man._
> 
> _“If you can’t walk, then crawl.” Now it was a demand._
> 
> _“You’re really a fucked up son of a bitch, Asami!” I shouted my head off, giving no damn about the consequences of my profanity. “Just die and go back to hell!”_
> 
> _The guileful businessman won, laughing with unfeeling satisfaction when I started to crawl toward his presence. I was beyond help, biting my tongue and forcing back tears. I had became the laughing stock, a plaything — garbage; but I had to live despite the ignominious loss of dignity, so I could blow his brain out someday._
> 
> _“So beautiful, my Akihito,” was his honest comment when I finally reached where his feet were. “I’ll leave the rest to you.” The corner of his mouth curled up into wolfish grin. “You know what to do.”_
> 
> _I knew almost immediately what he meant. It was a crushing defeat, leaving me so demented I would break any mirror that reflected my horrid existence. This time I could only see myself in his piercing golden orbs, waiting for the right time to destroy them with my own hands. But the right time never came. I pulled myself up with a short wince, shifting my lifeless gaze from his perfectly sculpted face down to the erotic sight of his parting thighs. My pulses accelerated in a way I couldn’t control. I saw a huge bulge that made the luxurious fabric of his dark pants stretched up tight. His wild excitement lured me right behind the zipper, couldn’t wait until it was set free._
> 
> _“Oops, wait,” he suddenly interrupted as I raised my hand. “No hand, my dear.” His hands were so gentle that I gaped in an utter daze, creating propitiatory patterns on my face. When my vexation subsided, something else, something inside me awakened. It was so wrong but felt so good. Just one fucking spell and I was possessed. “Use that bitchy mouth of yours that I love so much, Akihito.”_

 

I found myself in Tokai University Tokyo Hospital. And alive, conscious with minor injuries, much to my disbelief. Contemplatively, I remained in an upright position on the side of my gurney after a series of immediate examination, swinging one of my feet in mid-air. In momentary solitude I tried to recall some memories, to chronologically remember why I ended up in the emergency department instead of home. Then I saw the blue curtains in front of me suddenly pulled open. I gasped. I froze, breathless, blood pounding in my ears as a familiar figure gave me an intense stare. A young man with a DSLR camera hanging down from his left shoulder. I was entranced by glimpses of home, but reality quickly slapped me on the face.

“L...”

“You bastard!”  

The photographer — who was also my long-time roommate — looked so unhappy that I froze immediately when he stomped toward me. There were busy ER staffs, there were a few cops in view too, and I was literally fixed on a gurney in the adult area of the emergency ward after a set of assessments, but this man with his devil-may-care attitude brushed past the protocol and suddenly grabbed me by the collar of my jacket. As expected, in a matter of seconds a commotion arose and despite the slow recovery from trauma, I had no choice but to be the middleman between my impetuous buddy and the uniformed officers who quickly reacted to the freelance journalist’s rude intrusion. Indeed, I had to lie through my teeth to the cautious and suspicious cops and nurses, saying that L was a close relative and we had quite a quarrel before the unfortunate incident. It was really a daunting task to assure them that we wouldn’t jump down each other’s throats, particularly because L seemed very bad-tempered in which I couldn’t blame him. But after I pleaded and apologized and told them that I needed his company, those people in charge finally left us alone, although I could feel their furtive stares sticking around.

“Where the hell have you been, Akihito?!” L lowered his voice; the slightly dry voice that reminded me of the restful warmth of home I had been longing to return to, but then the intensity of his fury snapped me back to reality. It was much more than what I could bear as I sat immobile in a cold sweat. I gingerly shifted my eyes from his badge back to his blazing brown ones, thanking the heaven that the type of menace he had was different from what I would never forget from a certain sadistic evildoer. His hands clipped the joints of my shoulders and upper arms so firmly I couldn’t budge. Indignant he clearly seemed, but I knew he would never ever hurt me. “Suddenly sending me an email from Hokkaido telling me that you had a tournament in there...” His voice trailed off as he stepped back, a mixture of disappointment and sadness now spreading over his features. “Do you even still consider me as your friend and brother, Akihito!?”

I felt like I was hit by a bullet train just a second after he said it. Time stopped rolling. All the noise and activity around the emergency ward disappeared, replaced by a terrifying, monochromatic world where I could only perceive the unhappiness that cut my heart open. It wasn’t the trauma from the fact that I was almost killed by raging tires and lethal speed that deafened me. No. I had seen a mass murder, I was tortured and humiliated, I lost much weight and occasionally couldn’t function due to repeatedly unexpected swings of mentality. I thought nothing else could be worse than what I had been through during the captivity. But no, I was wrong. I didn’t want to return to my dark times in the past anymore; times when the younger me could only think of killing himself to escape from pain and fear. So I fought. I would fight back in many ways, I had changed, although I finally met a formidable enemy called Asami Ryuichi and stings of anxiety was too much for me to bear sometimes. But no, the worst villain in my life didn’t even cross my mind as I came face-to-face with L. He was a precious friend; my treasure, my home, much more than that. I didn’t want to make him worried or drag him down with my problems. No way. Asami Ryuichi broke my body and manipulated my mind too many times, but my soul was tied to this person. It was scary as well as astonishing how L could make me see rainbows and unicorns or feel like I stood under rain of needles. Whatever he did, whatever he said to me, it all could cause various effects to me from good to bad. Although unfortunately, in a way that he never noticed.

“You could’ve at the very least told me that you planned to go to Hokkaido!”

_Hokkaido?_

“Am I fucking insignificant now that you kept it a secret from me?!” L shook me — my heart and my rationality. He looked so angry I believed I had done an unforgivable mistake. But the problem was, I didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Why, Akihito?!” He restrained nothing when losing his temper, not surprising, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to accept the wild accusations he suddenly threw at me. “Because you thought I wouldn’t allow you to go to Hokkaido?!”

_Who the hell went to Hokkaido?_

“Right.” L gave his temple a hard massage as if all negative emotions came from there. His right eye was pretty bloodshot. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but sheer confusion and a whirlwind of its effects in my stomach suppressed my voice. After a senior nurse looked at him disapprovingly and reminded him not to raised a ruckus in our area, he made a momentary period of silence to cool his head. Sadly, it wasn’t long enough for me to brace myself. So steeply leaning forward to the side of my gurney and caging me between his arms, into my ear he said, “I hate you for being involved in the murky world of Circle Code.” A verdict of guilty. I couldn’t voice my objection against him. “I should’ve fucking broken your legs and dragged you out of that place earlier.”

_Wait, wait... how could he believe that I was in Hokkaido?_

“For fuck’s sake, listen to me, Akihito!”

L tossed his head to the side, flipping the eye-grazing bangs and scaring the hell out of me after the abrupt punctuation of our eye contact, because it always meant that the violent thoughts in his head had became so unbearable that he had to temporarily take a break from the fiery tension. Otherwise, something bad would happen. _Really_ bad. I swallowed hard. He was always a stubborn, hotheaded young soul since the first time I met him, but the current ferocious look on him brought me back to the distant past. The last time he shouted at me and couldn’t contain himself like that was several years ago. When he found out that I locked myself in my bathroom for a suicide attempt. I clearly remembered he breached the door alone and broke his hand, but somehow managed to slap me hard on the face and dragged me out of the darkness. Now that we were in this emergency department with a bunch of alerted onlookers around us, I hoped he didn’t make himself end up in cell.

“You’d been missing without a trace for three days and nobody fucking knew your whereabouts,” he spoke in a low, resentful voice, looking back at me after what seemed to be an agonizing moment. I felt the same as he did, agonized, watching him mentally exhausted as though he had lost a couple of years from his lifespan. All because of motherfucking me. “I was this hopeless crazy sucker on my way to the police station to ask for help, but then your email suddenly reached me! And know what?!” It was the peak of his grief — I believed _that_ , for some reasons I couldn’t say. “You said you joined a goddamn tournament worth one million yen!”

_Email? I... sent him an email?_

“What the hell were you thinking, Akihito?!” he asked me squeamishly, tugging at the fabric on my chest. “You didn’t give a fuck about me anymore?!”

“Myung Soo...” In a great deal of dread I called him with his birth name, but I didn’t feel surprised when he remained bitter. It was an unfair misunderstanding and I knew Asami Ryuichi was the blameworthy one behind all the wrong opinions and beliefs about me, but I couldn’t explain the truth to him. I would never. “... please, I...”

Shifting his gaze away from me, he sullenly said, “If you want to start living by your own, then the least you can do is tell me the truth.” It would be no exaggeration to say that his rash conclusion struck me like lightning. I froze as my heart sank, trying to stop him from turning around but I couldn’t let out any single word to defend my damn self. His glum voice made me lose my wits. That unapproachable back was an impenetrable barrier between me and his forgiveness. “I won’t stand in your way, Akihito,” he said without a note of hesitation, although I could notice concealed trembles as he continued to face the light blue curtain instead of me. “If that’s what you want.”

... _please, don’t say it._

“I hate that disgusting fat-ass taking advantage of your kindness and guilt.” We were merely one step apart, but it felt like he talked to me from miles away. We were both _hurt_ ; I could just tell him that I had never been to Hokkaido, and that instead I was abducted by a filthy dirty businessman who was once an object of his viewfinder when he was tasked to catch a glimpse of the young billionaire’s nightlife, but the sight of his shattered trust sliced me through every darkened recess of my mind. I didn’t have the right words for my explanation. I thought I shut myself down. “Don’t pretend to be okay while you’re fucking not, I really hate that.” And finally, he turned back at me again. “But I will hate myself more if something bad happens to you, Akihito,” he said, dark brown eyes glinting with gloomy nostalgia. “On the day we left the orphanage together, we made a promise that we would protect each other, didn’t we?”

_We did._

“Tell me, Akihito. Have I actually been a bother to you?” L asked the question that only misguided us further. I bit my tongue and felt like I was breathing in toxic gas. Keeping Asami Ryuichi and the sins we had committed behind closed doors cost my heart, my life, as I bled inside watching L get the wrong end of the stick.

_Should I tell him the truth? Should I not?_

“Just fucking say the word and I’ll stay away from you.”

 — _no... what?_

I was a twenty-three-year-old adult, but I fucking cried. Inside. I had climbed the fame to be the third strongest fighter in Circle Code, but I broke down pathetically like a big sissy as the fear of living in the shitty world without him spread through me. If I said or did things so untypical of me, L was always the reason. My body trembled hard and all I could feel was harsh coldness that pricked my skin. Nausea coiled itself tightly around me, up to my neck and my mouth until I vomited dry coughs and my own empty soul. An irremediable sense of disconnection killed all memories related to bliss and left me powerless with demons of mockery that always lived inside my head. Suddenly I lost control of myself in the emergency room, stepping down from my gurney and screaming the place down. Anxiety had a mind of its own and I... No. I opened my eyes and realized that I had started to hallucinate. The symptoms apparently tried to return. _But not today,_ I admonished myself. I had been living in so much pain anyway — physically, mentally. If I had to lie with this shivering heart, it wouldn’t be a problem. Perhaps I had been masochistic from the start.

“What’s got into your head, bro?” I smiled as wide as the wound in my heart, clouding the truth so he wouldn’t find the clarity. It was L’s nature to be hell-bent on finding true values and meanings in everything. Although it was good, I just had the gut feeling that he wouldn’t live long with such idealism. So I had no choice but to stay a sinner; a liar, a hypocrite, a crazy fuckhead pretending to be sane. Under my skin was Asami Ryuichi’s sweet venom that killed me slowly. And I just didn’t want L to come closer to the demon he couldn’t play well with. Solely for the sake of him, I would drink more cups of sins and enjoyed the pain from holding the thorns of fake vivacity. “Why are you suddenly being a drama queen?” I jokingly gave him a fist on the chest, achieving my goal as he stared at me in surprise.

_I don’t want to return to how I used to be..._

“Okay, I admit it.” Fuck with my erratic heartbeats and crumbling self-respect. I had to pull off a great act no matter what. “That’s because you would really give me the shits.”

_... because I’d promised you to be strong._

“Uncle Chai told me that I could pay off my debts if I won the first prize.”

“And did you win?”

Imitating an innocent chuckle, I shook my head then said, “I didn’t.”

“So?”

“So I still have debts to worry about and need a fussy mother-like friend to take care of me.” One more guiltless smile and it would be perfect. “So stop talking about this... ugh, _bother_ thing, or _stay away_ , or whatever that a girl in her severe PMS will usually say, okay?” I looked straight at the agitation in his brown eyes jovially, trying hard to make an adorable sound, “Please?”

L avoided eye contact with a blank expression, faltering slightly as he stepped back and took a sharp intake of breathe. Suddenly he became so silent like a disoriented child trapped in an unfamiliar environment, giving me the jitters. He dragged a chair then sat himself down right in front of me, eyes open but unseeing. And when I called him out of serious concern, he didn’t respond, as if he was encased in a shatterproof shell that my voice couldn’t pass through. This kind of behavioral change scared me more than his hotheadedness since his complete silence was like a bottomless abyss that my brain couldn’t scrutinize.

“Guess what, Akihito?” he suddenly spoke, pulling me up short as I was about to call the nurse.

“Yes, Sir?”

Giving me a vexed glower, he said, “I feel like killing you now. Right here.”

I gulped hard, a ripple of unease flowing up my spine. “A—are you... you’re joking, right?”

“Of course,” he answered, showing me one of his trademark smirks that most of the times managed to completely sweep girls off their feet. “But in my mind I killed you and brought you back to life again because... fuck, we’re best friends forever, aren’t we?”

I did it. I fooled him for his own good. To keep him out of harm’s way. I played it well, to my relief. I followed the game Asami Ryuichi had orchestrated, surreptitiously bearing the mixed feelings about the crime lord: if I had to thank him later or give him a real kick on his big balls. “Wow, dude, that makes me cringe like hell!” I pulled a face as I gave his neck a joking chop with my hand. And as expected, he scolded me and scowled because he had such an extremely ticklish neck, clearly not in the right mood to laugh his head off.

“Fuck you, Akihito.” The sharp-tongued photographer started another page of pique and I prepared myself to hear him out. After the clandestine, laborious attempt to steer him away from finding the truth that would break us both, him shifting from the melancholy to his usual hot temper was the satisfactory outcome I desired. “I really freaked out when you didn’t come back,” he said in a sulky tone of voice. I hid a smile that I could neither prevent nor fake. Although I felt completely guilty after working him up like that, it was calming to know that he was troubled during my absence. Did this mean I was sadistic too? “I barely functioned knowing that you were unreachable.” He sighed, eyes ahead but unfocused. And I secretly took the opportunity to adore the ways his thick and long eyelashes moved up and down. The bloodshot worried me nonetheless. “If you meet Kou and Takato, I bet they will tell you that I went ape-shit in the bar,” he confessed, slight shades of embarrassment dusting over his cheeks. “Well, that’s because some old perverted gay tried to grope me too.”

“No doubt about that,” I snickered.

“I salute you for your courage and determination to survive in such a...” he hesitated, apparently trying to summarize his experience in less offensive words. “A _unusual_ place,” he resumed speaking, looking at me both disapprovingly and admiringly. “One hundred feet in the air, a gay bar, Circle Code. Is working in adrenaline-pumping and stomach-churning places your hobby, Akihito?”

Either it contained sarcasm or was purely complimentary, I smiled proudly. “Unlike you of course, I owned no diploma and academic shits to pursue any white-collar job.” It was unvarnished truth. “But you can go up to the university and find a better career instead of freelancing, you know,” I said. “It’s true that you were quite a delinquent during high school, but you’ve got the brains.”

“Although some scholarships were shoved to my face back then, we both know that I’m never an academic person,” L responded matter-of-factly. “I hate to be under someone else’s control, to be limited by rules and schedules. Call me stupid or conceited, I just want to pursue things with my viewfinder.”

“Right.” I nodded. “That’s so you.”

The atmosphere between us was lightened, thanks to good lies of mine. My heart was in a total shambles after all things that happened, but his presence was always stronger than any other anti-depressants, too strong that it strangled my anxiety at birth and secured every broken piece of me. L was, indeed, the only thing I needed. The sole reason why I continued to fight against the world, even the great devil Asami Ryuichi. And to keep him safe, it meant that I had to keep him in blissful ignorance.

“So you really went to Hokkaido, huh?” he broke the silence, still demanding enough confirmation.

“Are you lack of evidence, Sir?” I asked him back, inwardly telling myself to chill out. “I didn’t get these broken bones from the car incident, for your information.”

“I’m still not done with you secretly going to Hokkaido without telling me, but I can tell that I’m relieved.” He leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “So relieved, surprisingly,” he added the emphasis, as if trying to make peace with himself instead of reassuring me. “When you were suddenly gone, I was insanely afraid of turning on the TV and receiving text messages. Afraid if you...” His voice trailed away. Again, I noticed gloomy fear in his brown eyes. “If you were reported dead with your head missing or something like that.”

“But you see, I’m perfectly fine.” Of course I bent the truth. But strangely, I didn’t feel bad about it. “Despite bruises and fractured bones.”

“Please don’t do that to me again,” he said hauntingly. “Don’t keep me in the dark, Akihito.”

 

> _“I set you free but remember this, Akihito,” said the demon of demons at the end of his invasive kisses. His tantalizing gaze, for fuck’s sake, was impossible to resist. “Whatever you do, you can’t escape from me anymore.”_
> 
> _I squeezed my eyes shut in a desperate attempt to catch my breath, pushing the back of my hand against the wild poundings on my lips caused by his horrifying desire. Pain grew in my neck after he ruthlessly twisted my head around. We were sitting on a sofa with Asami Ryuichi’s huge frame behind me, with his arms tightly wrapping around me. The sudden fact that he would release me from all the ridiculous luxury in his penthouse suite — and particularly, from the stench of sins and traces of depraved excitement in his dim-lighted red room — never came to me as good news since actually, that sick bastard only kicked me into another predicament. I swallowed the lump in my throat, enduring the dangerously addictive taste of chocolate and nicotine that lingered on my tongue. And much to my embarrassment, two of his elite bodyguards stood near us, plus the straight-faced secretary. After my steamy moment with their big boss, I was shocked to see how they could maintain expressionless faces._
> 
> _“I want you to have this.”_
> 
> _“What the hell are you—” I gaped at something unzipped by Kirishima Kei on the table in front of me. “A backpack full of snacks and sweets? Are you joking me?!”_
> 
> _“When it’s time, you’ll know what to do.”_

 

“Hey L,” I smiled, hinting at a blue backpack under my gurney. “I didn’t win the tournament, but I can’t go back home empty-handed.”

Giving me an inquisitive look, he replied, “What?”

“Souvenirs,” I expectantly said. “From Hokkaido.”

Rather uninterested, L took the backpack and deftly unzipped it. “The hell,” he cursed under his breath. “Do you want to bribe me?”

“I’m bribing you.”

“Fine. I’ll take ‘em all!” L hugged the backpack as soon as I teased him, brown eyes sending me a threatening scowl. “I won’t give you anything!”

“L, you’re scary when angry, but you’re not that meanie,” I said with a grimace, raising my open hand, palm out toward him. “Give me the _Ganso Tokibi Choco_.”

Of course I won when I pouted my lips. After tearing the plastic package of the chocolate bar made with Hokkaido corn coated with white chocolate, he handed it over to me. “Anyway, was that a sudden trip to Hokkaido?” he asked. “You didn’t even pack your things.”

“The holy words from heaven commanded me to only bring what’s most important.”

“Clothes, shoes and bla bla bla are not important?” he disapproved, brow knitted. “It’s a fucking three-week trip, Akihito.”

“I bought my necessities there.”

“Then you came back only with a backpack of sweets and snacks?” he replied with a sneer, at the same time showing a spark of interest for _Sapporo Okaki Oh! Yakitokibi_ of all Hokkaido’s must-buy things he could find in the backpack. “And some broken bones?”

“Honestly...” I looked sideways as I munched on my chocolate bar, putting on an act and hoping that the light meal dulled his journalistic instinct for a while. “I lost my other bag when I slept.”

“And your cellphone? Did some jerk steal it too?”

“Uncle Chai confiscated it. Not long after I emailed you.”

“Fuck that fat-ass!” L launched another attack of profanity. I wasn’t surprised. “Will you allow that bastard to keep controlling your life?!” he preached. “This is so not like you, Akihito!”

“I have debts to pay off.”

“Such a nasty loan shark like him aren’t meant to be your savior from the start. Why do you have to be such a fool to trust him?”

“I know.” I giggled. “That’s why, let me pay for my stupidity.”

“This argument again... holy shit!” L put down the backpack then stood up exasperatedly. “Will this ever end?!” If there was one thing I couldn’t stop from my roommate, it was L on the warpath. “No!” he spat. “As long as you still work for that churlish guardian-promoter of yours, I won’t stop opposing you, Akihito!”

“That’s some good news to hear.” I smiled an unruffled smile, watching L open his mouth wide upward and immediately empty the plastic package of _Sapporo Okaki Oh! Yakitokibi._ “Thank you.”

“And so—what again now?” L gave me a really dirty look, noisily grinding the crispy snack made with _mochi_ rice and Hokkaido corn inside his mouth. “Why the hell do you always have to be such a complete shit magnet, Akihito?!”

_Only gods know why._

“I was wandering when some crazy drunkard drove down the city street and smashed his car into a food store. Do you even know what I felt when I fucking saw you wheeled into an ambulance?” Either L was angry or panic-stricken, I really couldn’t tell. “Just what the hell were you doing, Akihito?! After leaving me completely clueless about your return from Hokkaido, you suddenly appeared from the evident mess of the horrifying collision!” I sat stiff and surprised with an idle gap between my lips. He made a noise again I didn’t know how to react. “I thought you were a goddamn ghost! Fuck!”

“Ah—yes, um...” I gulped nervously. “I was thinking of... giving you a surprise return and—”

“Oh sure!” he snapped. “You did surprise me, Akihito!”

“I haven’t finished talking,” I protested. “So I walked on the sidewalk and saw this ignorant tourist litter unashamedly. I stopped to pick up her trash, and then—”

“The shit came to you,” he cut me short again.

“The shit came to me — oh, yes.” I absolutely agreed with him. “Frankly speaking, I thought the car would hit me first before it crashed into the building...”

L faced me with arms akimbo, saying, “But for some fucking nonsensical reason, the car swerved sharply at the last seconds before hitting you.”

“You’ve just taken the words out of my mouth.”

“Fuck!” L suddenly directed the blast of his violent emotion at the chair he was previously sitting on, kicking it, completely giving no damn about his surroundings, his face growing so red from drastically rising heat despite cooling circulation of air in the emergency room. I reached my hand out to him apologetically, fear surging up from deep inside my stomach, but he only gave me a cold and distant look of someone who had already been bored and sick to be in the same unpleasant situation for too long. Then I saw him turn away and dash through the blue curtains. No words were said. And I felt besieged by pain.

“Everything alright, Sir?” A nurse approached me with a worried expression.

I lifted my eyes to the source of the unfamiliar voice, half lost in the chaos of my mind.

“Will you need me to do something to the man you were talking to before?” Another stranger appeared in front of me. A young cop, and he looked cautious.

Forcing a calm smile, I gave them a deliberate answer, “No, no... it’s fine, really. Thank you.” My voice trembled slightly, but I had to continue wearing the mask of cordiality. “He’s my friend, my roommate, the only family I have, so please forgive him,” I said. “He’s a bit hard to handle as you can see, but he’s not a bad person.”

At the end of our rather awkward conversation, my environment returned to what those strangers considered as conducive. Under control. Unfortunately, not for me. I lied down on my gurney after a meticulous round of injury checks, dragging my bottom lip into my mouth and sinking my teeth into it, trying not to scream the place down as I saw the darkness engulf me and all I could see was the cracking image of L’s crestfallen face before he left me alone. But I did scream inside, feeling so empty that I didn’t know if I could give my traumatized body the rest it deserved. I thought of L in despair. I whispered his name to my broken self. After an unexpected twist of events and all sickening shits and bad lucks that followed, I needed him more than anyone... but he was gone.

“Hey.”

_No... he isn’t leaving._

I opened my eyes as soon as I heard that very dear, although moping, sound.

“I’m sorry.” The handsome young man remained unsmiling, but I knew that he deeply meant what he said. Calmer than before, he reeked of burnt tobacco. And indescribable peace returned to me from the knowledge that he radically cared about me. “I just can’t help myself,” he continued without looking at me, placing his hand on my chest as I pulled myself up. “I’ve lost count of all the times your bad lucks almost got you killed, Akihito.”

“Just almost,” I replied with a sincere smile, lying back down. “I’m still alive anyway.”

“Shut the hell up!” L shot me a reproachful glare, but then his expression changed into one of palpable worry. “We’re still not done with the fact that you had fucking stumbled into a gangster war and then— half an hour ago, you could have—!” He couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence and dropped his face onto the side of the gurney, next to my arm. “Holy shit!” His intense eyes then surprised me as he gazed back at me. “I’d spend the rest of my life cursing the gods if I were you!”

I responded with an effortless smile. And the darkness immediately dispersed as I saw myself reflected in his brown eyes. “Hey, Myung Soo,” I muttered, beckoning him to come closer. When the side of his face gently grazed mine, I whispered, “How about running away to Koreatown right now?”

“Are you out of your mind, dumbass?!” he replied with a shocked, angry yell. As I expected.

“It’s been a long time since the last time we had fun together.”

“Akihito! You’ve fucking got broken limbs and to make it worse... you almost got killed by a fucking car!” he reamed me out in utter disbelief. “If I were you, I would—!”

With a mischievous grin I silenced him and quietly said, “This is my treat.”

 

* * *

 

It was raining quite heavily. The wall clock struck one in the morning when I could finally see my dirt cheap apartment again after what felt like a hundred years. Actually a one bedroom apartment, it was located in a quiet neighborhood in one of Sasazuka’s residential areas. And there was quite a problem since it was on the third floor, and L was too drunk to even sit up straight in the taxi that had taken us home from the vibrant Koreatown of Shin-Ōkubo. To my relief, the taxi driver was a kind soul who responsively offered himself to help me carry my unconscious roommate to our apartment. The only bedroom we had were periodically modified insomuch that it had turned into a crammed place that covered L’s mini studio and workspace. So when we finally reached 306B, I thankfully told the friendly stranger to just leave L on the long sofa and paid for the given service. As soon as I closed the door, I took a sharp intake of bliss for being at home again, for returning to the normality that I belonged to, although deep down, I was aware that the freedom was nothing but illusory because I didn’t know how and when the devil would abduct me again.

I made certain steps toward the dark-haired man on the sofa. They weren’t easy steps, but I forgot all the pain I felt when I knew that he was my final destination. After weeks of my disappearance the room seemed like it welcomed me back, always spotlessly clean and tidy as I remembered since my roommate was a total clean freak. And it still characteristically smelled the same. Of home. Of togetherness. It couldn’t be compared to such jaw-dropping luxury in a certain someone’s penthouse suite, because I would always prefer what I already had to temporary glitters of earthly fame and wealth. Only in this small place could I be myself, be with someone who made me feel valued, feel protected. The main room was multifunctional, serving as our bedroom, living room and dining room depending on situational reasons. We spent our time together here. Laughs, perverted talks, stresses, nostalgia and dreams. At the very back of the main room was a small kitchen area, then a bathroom and a balcony. It was my home, _our_ home, far from being a spacious environment, but I derived great comfort from it. Plus, my roommate was a perfect housekeeper. As I thoroughly took off L’s black sneakers and black socks, then his black jacket, I repeatedly glanced at his flushed face, admiring how much he had changed since puberty hit him.

Back then, Kim Myung Soo was a _tsundere_ brat. A real troublemaker, because he would dauntlessly started a fight with anyone who upset him. He was short and almost always appeared messy and dirty with sticking plasters on his cheeks, arms and legs. He scared many kids in the orphanage at that time because of his unexpected mood swings, but to me, he was just a strange, depressed kid. And the origin of his nickname was from his close resemblance to a popular _manga_ character. Specifically, his bushy frizzy hair. It was an eccentric fictional character, exclusively known by the mononym L who appeared to have the same look of hair. But who knew, as he grew older, his facial and anatomical features also changed drastically. Stronger, sharper, and soon many girls fell head over heels in love with him. Surprisingly, we got closer when we grew up together as teenagers and caused more problems to our caretakers. While I quit high school, he managed to graduate although he had to repeat two years. Of course, because he was quite a delinquent back then. Now that the rebellious stage had passed, we continued to go through the hardships of adulthood side by side. Many things had happened. Ups and downs, but we were never apart. I couldn’t exactly remember since when I became very attached to L, but I felt so blessed to have him in my memories.

_Oh... he’s so beautiful even when he sleeps..._

I sat on the _tatami_ floor and brought my face closer to his, staring at his high-bridged pointed nose then down to his red lips. The sight of L sleeping very soundly was so tantalizing I couldn’t think of anything else, even the sheer misery that I could never tell him. It was the same face that I had been surreptitiously staring at for countless times, but I never grew bored and tired of seeing him in such undisturbed peace. Without him knowing, I committed an unforgivable sin when I realized that he was more than just a good friend and brother to me. Guilt always haunted me ever since, but trying to get him out of my mind was like trying to choke myself to death. I fell in love with him because he _loved_ me — when I couldn’t love myself. And it was a sad tragedy that my feelings for him would never be reciprocated, because he was an innocent _straight_ guy while I... I was nothing but a disgraceful betrayer. I didn’t think I could bear the loss and shame if he found the truth, so I would just love him silently. His happiness was my happiness. While he pursued his dreams in photography and journalism, I had nothing but the incessant desire to stay by his side regardless of how far he would take me. But it was just, sometimes, I couldn’t contain myself when I got physically too close to L.

_Akihito... no._

The tight, burning feeling in my chest stopped me before I kissed him on the lips. With utter guilt I pushed myself away, forcing back tears as I fought against my inner demons — which were sometimes _stronger_ than me. No matter how close we were, the boundaries always remained clear and left me hurt alone. I took my crutch and stood up, carrying the invisible hell inside me as I mourned in deep regret. Later I found my asylum in the bathroom, under warm water despite my broken arm and leg to calm down my mind, to give my heart a break. When I finished the quiet meditation and put on new clothes, I realized that I almost spent two hours in the bathtub. Then I returned to where L was and got quite surprised. The heavy sleeper had rolled wildly that he almost fell off the sofa. I inhaled deeply to find my balance, to keep a tight control of myself, then drew nearer to the raven hair and fixed his sleeping position. Not long after that, double knocks on the front door nearly made me jump out of my skin.

_Who the hell is coming at this hour?_

I hesitated, but then a series of knocks was heard again. I tottered with my crutch toward the door. When I opened it, I really couldn’t believe my eyes. “A—Asami!?” I rooted to the spot as the greatest devil I had ever known flashed a lecherous grin at me. “How did you—?!”

“So you’re still awake,” he cut me short, all fucking high and mighty as he averted his lethal gaze and looked over my shoulder to give my apartment a brief examination. Much to my horror, the epitome of Japanese wealthy bachelor suddenly widened the opening as he pushed the door and I reflexively steered clear of him. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, I froze involuntarily and watched him neatly leave his shiny shoes on the entryway. Without asking for permission, he then strutted past me and said, “I’m coming in.”

“What did you come here for?!” I spat with a note of caution, so trapped in a frustrating circumstance where I wanted to loudly lash out at him but was afraid of disturbing my neighbors.

Both hands in the pockets of his dark pants, Asami Ryuichi stopped after two steps on the narrow passageway and looked back at me. “No reason,” he said unhesitatingly. Quite a shock for me since he acted like he owned the place. I wondered if something had knocked his head hard that he forgot the basic manner as a guest in someone else’s house. Or if he actually thought so low of me. “I came to get out of the rain.” Bullshit. His expensive custom-tailored business suit looked wet from the harsh weather, but I didn’t fucking care. His usually slicked back dark hair, too, gave up its formal style because of the heavy drops. And for a few seconds my heart skipped a beat as I continued to glare at him, noticing how he looked more attractive and a lot younger than his chronological age when his hair was let down. Such top-notch male beauty, it was terrifying to know that I was still not immune to it. Hell, no, _shit_ — I slapped myself mentally and glanced away. He got a myriad of servants and bullet-proof cars. Just one call and the problem was solved. “I’ll leave once it lets up,” he then said. And it didn’t even sound like a promise.

“What the fuck!” I retorted. “It’s three in the morning, you know!”

“I guess work’s been pretty hectic, hm?”

“I have no time to deal with your absolute nonsense!” I quickened my faltering pace toward the big bad guy, ignoring all sudden twinges in my limbs as the shameless bastard kept ushering himself into my place. An unsightly, cheap place that — for someone incredibly rich and influential (and fucking sick) like him — would only come out as a complete joke. “Leave now or I’ll call the police!”

I had, indeed, made a fatal miscalculation. The unpredictable Alpha male suddenly pushed me back to the wall, causing quite a loud thud as I lost my crutch. When I slightly recovered from the throbbing pain, I found myself already imprisoned between his arms. He had a triumphant smile on his face, paralyzing me immediately with his piercing gaze.

“Aren’t you supposed to treat your guest politely, Akihito?”

“Look who’s talking!” I berated him. “You suddenly barged into my place and now you’re asking me to be fucking nice to you?!”

Asami Ryuichi only replied with a small smile, then withdrew himself as he showed further interest in the low-end apartment that I shared with L. To be suddenly visited by such a famous Japanese billionaire caused certain nervousness, but his swaggering self-confidence infuriated me even more. After taking back my crutch from the floor I was ready to confront him again, to kick his ass out of my private world, but he already marked the multifunctional room with his dominant presence when I found him, staring down at L with a hardened expression that I couldn’t decode. For some reason I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, shifting my troubled gaze between the two men who were completely strangers to each other. So next I broke the uninterrupted silence with an awkward throat-clearing cough, and finally the crime lord turned his gaze back to me asking if he was allowed to have a seat — _again,_ with a bewitching smile that reminded me of how invulnerable he was. Of how I hated him so much. Despite the facts that he was twelve years older and of the highest social rank, I didn’t feel the need to be respectful since he didn’t deserve that. But then I caught myself by surprise when I involuntarily moved to give him a chair. He thanked me, I remained sullenly silent.

“Your roommate?” The crime lord gazed fixedly at a young man sprawling on the only sofa in the room. “What a good-looking man.”

At his last statement I flew off the handle, knowing that he always had something evil in his head. “Don’t you dare go near him!”

“Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not nervous! I’m angry!” I bellowed across the room.

“Is it nice to yell out while your roommate is sleeping?” he replied, looking at me with irritating amusement. “Oh, wait. I smell alcohol. Is he blind drunk?”

“It’s not your business!” The fact that I couldn’t use my limbs to beat the hell out of that conceited creature depressed me. “Just leave already!”

I sat down on a stool adjacent to the refrigerator in the kitchen area, which meant that we weren’t actually far apart. With the presence of the nation’s most dangerous person, the room felt so uncomfortably cramped and darker although the lighting was the same as usual. And I kept making laborious sighs from the maddening tension and uncertainty, looking away only to hide the fact that I was very close to be scared stiff. An undisrupted period of a deathly hush consumed the liveliness of the room after we both stopped talking, until he then stood up and methodically took off his made-to-order black suit jacket. I started to sweat bullets when he hung his suit jacket on the back of his chair and loosened his patterned necktie. Such an ordinary sight was supposed to hold nothing special, but I felt a strange wave of fascination as well as unease seeing how the expensive material of his white shirt stuck rather too closely to his muscular shape. A fragment of indecent fantasy suddenly appeared in my head and shocked, I immediately rose from the stool with heavy breathing. Anger, fear, excitement. I didn’t know what actually possessed me when our eyes met.

“Is there anything wrong?” he asked.

“YOU!!!” I barked, pointing a finger at him. “You’re the very reason why everything goes so wrong!”

Asami Ryuichi gave me a quizzical look, but I knew that it was just one of his nasty tricks to catch me off guard. And when he moved his feet toward me, I immediately reacted in a frenzy of anxiety, nudging a glass of water sitting next to the kitchen sink. It fell on the floor with loud crashing sounds and I instinctively looked at the person sleeping on the sofa. No signs of him waking up. Just gentle snores and the sounds of the clock ticking. And I couldn’t tell if it was acceptable to feel relief.

“Stay back!” I shouted at the black-haired man, panicking. “Don’t come any closer!”

“What are you thinking?”

“Just fuck off!”

“Akihito, you...” The devil made a smug grin that I hated so much, leaving me momentarily blank that I didn’t know since when he caught hold of my hand and squeezed it. “You’re thinking that I might just take you.” He licked his lips at a mysterious thought that frustrated me.

“Who the hell ever said that?!” I resisted against the unforgiving demon. Pointless resistance, because the scent of his body, the scent of _eros_ , was overwhelmingly strong that soon I felt drunk under the shade of his presence. “Stop! Asa—!” A low cry escaped my clenched teeth as his hand started to snake all the way under my shirt. I sensed my rationality sway, gradually wanting more of the sweet poison he offered. I killed myself when I helplessly made the first moan of forbidden ecstasy. And I was crushed by my own disgust and guilt as I frantically glanced at the sleeping face of my precious one. He had long been my sanctuary, but for the very first time in my life I didn’t want to see him. I wanted to dig a grave and buried myself six feet under the ground. Then in a very brief moment when I came back to my senses, I pushed the megalomaniac away with all my might to get free, feeling the fever that scared my soul. “Get off of me, you jerk!”

“Don’t make a fuss,” the cunning villain softly hushed me, his hideous demon peeking at me behind the darkened golden orbs. I held my breath from the haughty, fierce, and formidable air that surrounded him, unable to feel my limbs, until he suddenly pulled me and slammed me down on the _kotatsu_. Loud thuds broke in the room. I bit the inside of my cheeks, suppressing the urge to make sounds as I came face-to-face with L. Horror and shame choked me, I was driven to the brink of a complete breakdown. Losing my mind and strength, I dropped my face hard on the wooden surface when his hand masterfully sneaked down into my boxer. Weird shivers corrupted me. Inch by inch, he started to devour me. Heat against heat. I felt his flesh and skin persistently tease the very part of me that already surrendered to him. “See? You’re already this hard, Akihito.” The devil’s venomous lips brushed against my earlobe, summoning the forbidden excitement that I kept in chains. “What are you fantasizing?” A wicked laugh broke through my system. My eyes fluttered open and close as I mentally repulsed his temptations. “You couldn’t help waiting anxiously for my hands on you, hm?”

“No... fucking way!” I hoarsely retorted.

“But you’re right,” he said with an intoxicating tone of voice, then locked me completely with lustful bites and kisses along my exposed jawline. “I did come to take you, my cute Akihito.”

Having a heart of stone, Asami Ryuichi breached all rules and moral values so remorselessly I believed he wasn’t born to love and sympathize. He was unbelievably sadistic, condescending and addictive. A man of a superior gene. I forced back tears and moans when that bastard started to tear me apart, but the fierce determination didn’t last long because my physical form gradually responded to his evil calls and the sickening pleasure he gave me. I heard cracks of my bones, the sounds of my clothes being ripped, and the madness inside my rib cage. It would have been better if he had shot me dead. I bit the back of my hand so hard that I wouldn’t scream, being savored from behind as I sorrowfully looked at L through slight blurs that formed over my eyes. Drops of blood, sweat and tears on the _kotatsu_ witnessed the torture and the climax of my insanity. In utter despair I wished I could burst into a million pieces and disappeared into nothingness. I couldn’t bear the shame, forced to betray myself and the one I truly cherished. That night, Asami Ryuichi showed me no mercy as he revealed the darker side of him. Only a psychopath, indeed, would barge into someone’s house uninvited and enjoy fucking an injured man in front of someone else.

 


	3. Insatiable Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Akihito swallowed the mind venom from involving his best friend in his sinful fantasies, confronted his biggest admirer, and bartered his body on behalf of humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This is a quotation by D.H. Lawrence.  
> (2) This statement is inspired by Harley Queen as she confronted Joker in the Suicide Squad movie.  
> (3) Assistant Inspector.  
> (4) Young Master.  
> (5) This is a quotation by Gary Haugen.

 

* * *

 

**Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.**

_\- Francis Quarles -_

 

* * *

 

4.25 pm. As the sun hung at a low angle in the sky, I peered through the window blind that blocked the heat of the glaring afternoon light from entering the main room. A bead of sweat rolled down my temple. With each second that passed, my breathing became heavier as if I hauled myself against gravity. In fact, I had been standing still long enough I couldn’t feel the concrete base under me anymore, tied by uncertainties and assumptions. And it wasn’t the scorching sun that put me in an endless roller coaster of unpleasant feelings.

I unconsciously clenched the fabric on my stomach, turning my wariness from a digital clock on the refrigerator to a suspicious stranger who was sitting alone on the outdoor seating area of a quaint two-story coffee shop across the street. He looked like an ordinary college student, although _not really_ ordinary since he consistently showed quite a good sense of vintage fashion from the first day I noticed that he was one of the regulars at that coffee shop. It was already the fifth day. And he always sat in exactly the same spot, reading books, working on his laptop, or just enjoying his coffee with thumbs busy on his cellphone’s screen. By chance? I couldn’t tell, but I kept having shudders down my spine at the thought that the stranger might have a hidden agenda. Specifically because I had many times noticed him furtively stare only in the direction of my apartment room of all places in the tranquil neighborhood. And his stares were ones that penetrated through all barriers and made me feel like I was cornered; sharp and inescapable like an arrowhead, leaving me demented in the shadow of insecurity.

_“Akihito.”_

Mayday, mayday. I literally choked myself out of a raw instinct of self-defense, turning away from the window blind in sudden madness. A thud echoed faintly across the room as I dropped my crutch. I had bombs in my head and they were none other than the luring voices of the devil. Uncontrollable pulses hammered me from the inside. Darkness engulfed my senses and all I could hear were ungodly whisperings coming from my subconscious. I groaned in hyperventilation, my back slamming hard against the vertical structure behind me. I was shocked to the core at the resurgence of vivid memories that burst like fireworks — _memories_ , that told the true tale of my repeated falls into total depravity. There was nothing that was salvageable in me. Desire and disgust became one, corrupting my system. And it kept happening when I believed I could tame the demons under my skin. Only when I was alone did my demons become stronger, wilder, crueler; hiding perfectly once L returned home.

_“Miss me much?”_

I squeezed my eyes shut, teeth clenched so hard I could feel a sharp pain climbing from my jaw to my scalp. The unwanted voices were celebratory, evil. Clear and real with overwhelming depth of maturity, as if the enemy really stood right next to me. My mind was controlled by such external force, even from the very far distance. I reached the kitchen sink and held onto its clean edge. Forcing back tears I looked back two times, over to my left and right, crumbling again in endless perplexity as I realized that the dapper man I glimpsed turned out to be merely illusory. Asami Ryuichi. A demon with the flawless appearance of an archangel. His name resonated through my brain cells and a strange chill suddenly brushed down the back of my neck. I fought with myself to stay sane. Something uncontrollable, hateful, so unbearably wrong to even be thought of — _it_ wanted to take over me. And I owed the courage to pin it down to the last stronghold of my rationality. To hell with Asami Ryuichi. That loathsome bastard never appeared again in front of me since the last time he paid an unexpected visit, but the traces of his presence continued unabated through every scar that he left from his perpetual attempts to reform me.

_Enough! Pull yourself together, Akihito!_

The small kitchen area still reeled before my eyes. I trembled while taking deep breaths, in resistance to the constant stream of nausea after I promised myself not to break down. Between the knife block and the sink hole my gaze wandered indecisively, until I then steadied my focus on an opened carton of milk left on the countertop, random thoughts buzzing in my head. I counted from one to three; the intervals were quite long and laborious. When facing my opponent on the kickboxing ring I never cowered or hesitated, releasing my full potential as an underground fighter in pursuit of the prize, dauntlessly climbing from the very bottom until I could be the third strongest in Circle Code. And it never once crossed my mind that, on the unluckiest day of my life, this influential billionaire and criminal called Asami Ryuichi would strip me of my pride and drown me in the shame of being the worst loser. I always knew that I had been living a life where I couldn’t stop contradicting myself, but I never knew that the facade of my youthful insouciance was a fragile shell until Asami Ryuichi almost effortlessly broke it.

_Get the fuck back to your senses, fool!_

I laughed quietly, perhaps half consciously, trying to reach the carton of milk but I knocked it over instead. My emotions were in a shambles, resisting against one another and for quite a long pause I felt numb with inability to define myself and my environment. I wavered between reality and arbitrary fragments of illusions, unable to make any reflexive reaction when strawberry-flavored white liquid suddenly splashed onto my sweatpants and ran over the edge of the countertop. Innocent laughter of children, sounds of heavy traffic in the city, whirring noise of a rice steamer, gunshots, pleas and horrifying cries, _my lustful moans —_ all created a symphony of horrors. And I couldn’t scream myself out, until the chaos was suppressed by a deafening wave of shock that made me feel like someone had just furiously banged a gong near my ears. I stood still for a certain length of time that I couldn’t tell, my fingers clawing at the horizontal surface that supported my stance. When I found the rhythm of my life again, I inhaled deeply and tried to reconcile my presence with the real world. Never easy, but I was no longer the person I used to be.

_Not again._

_You can break, you can bleed... you've really messed up, Akihito... but you’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen! (1)_

My eyes immediately shot open at the direct strike of a mental reminder and I gasped loudly. Little by little I regained my balance, lowering my voice to a whisper as I called myself, calming down the riot that burst through me. I waited until the pain lessened, a gentle whistle of the wind sneaking in through the slats of the window blind, an inviting smell of stir-fried meat still trapped in the surrounding air, real silence welcoming me back. It took more time for me to fight the trembles and when I finally managed to control myself, I heaved myself away from the kitchenette and looked back in the direction where I dropped my crutch. To my surprise, a familiar noise came from the front door almost at the same time with the effort I made to position the crutch under my arm again. Approaching footsteps filled my ears, instantly ringing the alarm within me as I recognized the carefree pace.

“ _Tadaima._ ”

Replying to his toneless greeting, I tried to make myself as unfazed as I could, mopping the spilled milk on the floor. As per usual, he would throw his washed-out military-style backpack on the sofa that also functioned as the bed for any of us who slept on it first; he would let out rough sighs that signified his tiring day; and if I was at home, he would ask me if there was anything to eat and since the movements of two of my limbs were limited by plaster casts, he would scold me if he knew I forced myself to do the chores. Strangely this time, he didn’t initiate any conversation after sighing peevishly, and I continued to remain silent while cleaning up the mess I had caused. We hadn’t seen each other’s faces since the photographer went straight to his mini studio. And it was I actually who secretly struggled to minimize the chances of meeting his piercing eyes.

“Akihito?”

I paused to take a deep breath and brace myself. His elevated and hurried tone of voice revealed a lot about his surprise and distaste. Mostly the latter.

“What is this _thing_ on top of my laptop?”

“The last time I went to your workspace, I saw nothing there,” I answered casually after his expected protest. “Unless some perverted boogeyman found the photos of gravure idols you hid under the carpet and forgot to put them back to where he found them.”

“Don’t joke with me,” he said unamusedly. “A small bundle of fur is sleeping on my laptop now.”

 _Here we go again._ “If you’re talking about a cat, let me tell you that it’s not a thing,” I said, holding back a growl. “It’s the cutest animal that ever exists in this planet.”

“Is it from the street again?”

“What if I say yes?”

“Have you given it a proper bath before you let it in?”

“Practically, I let the kitten in first, then gave it a proper bath.”

“Did you remember to use any antiseptic or disinfectant, or something like that?”

“For _the sake of you_ more than the poor cat,” I emphasized one of my greatest annoyances at him, still not looking back yet, dropping the emptied carton of milk into a rubbish bin on the very corner of the back of our room, “I did.”

“Have you taken this _thing_ to the vet?” His endless questions started to piss me off. “Are you sure that it isn’t infected by any contagious disease?”

“That’s not a thing!” I answered back, now pressing an inch-thick wad of tissue on the slippery surface of the countertop. I better not left any stain or weird smell, or L would nag at me and redo the cleaning and _god,_ that would be no fun at all. “And I’ve planned to take our little fellow to the vet soon. Any other problems?”

“Damn you and your _savior instinct_ , Akihito!” L snapped from his workspace. It wasn’t his palpable disapproval that made me freeze. It was the fiercely spouted phrase of _savior instinct_ that quite slapped me mentally. Even I agreed with him that such instinct only got me into trouble most of the times. “Stop taking random stray cats home already!” he reminded me, deadly serious. “You know that my decision stays the same. I’ll send it to the animal shelter house soon.”

“Don’t be so cruel,” I replied, giving the countertop two quick sprays of lemon fragrance. “That one is an orphaned kitten.”

“So what? This tiny bundle of fur isn’t a toy, Akihito. It demands our money, our energy, our time and our—” he paused all of a sudden and I reflexively held my breath for a moment, wondering what kind of expression he made. “Love.” The last word of his explanatory statement was surprisingly the clearest. “We both aren’t that good to be its caretakers, are we?”

“It’s your problem. Not mine,” I said with a nonchalant shrug of shoulders.

“Don’t forget that you’ll be busy with work and people once you heal. And you’ll have got no time to think of some cat shits.”

“I’ll take care of the cat no matter what you say!” I strongly insisted, spinning around on the heel of my good leg as I felt his presence behind me. Just when I was about to continue the clamor against him, the bruised and swollen look on his face scared the hell out of me. “L!” I shrieked out of utter disbelief, panicking just in a fraction of a second. “What happened to you?”

The taller man quickly shunned the hand that I stretched out to him and trod toward the water dispenser instead. After gulping down a full mixture of warm and cold water, he unruffledly said, “A few shits happened.”

“Are these shits related to you throwing caution to the wind again?” I asked him in a surge of frantic curiosity. “So what scandal you’re sticking your nose into this time?”

“It’s quite confidential, sorry,” he said somberly, giving me only his broad back to look at. “I can’t tell anyone until I get enough proofs about it.”

“And your camera?”

“I’m afraid I can’t use it anymore.” Suddenly he turned to the countertop and the next thing I heard and made me flinch was a loud thud. I was relieved that the thing in his tight hold wasn’t made of pure glass. “Fuck!”

“Then at least... t—tell me who had beaten the hell out of you.” I didn’t expect I would stutter, but he really had an intimidating aura of unhappiness around him. “They must have scarier tempers than yours.” I laughed dryly.

As soon as I gave him a cheering pat on the shoulder, L turned to look at me and let loose a torrent of his frustration. “Will you believe me if I say that I’d messed with formidable security in one of the exclusive clubs owned by the king of Sion Group, Asami Ryuichi?”

_Asami Ryuichi._

Sickness infiltrated me at the mention of that forbidden name. There was a loud warning noise that only I could hear, as if we lived in different worlds and different flows of time. A frown appeared between his naturally arched eyebrows as I clutched onto the arm of his black denim jacket. My mind went blank at first, then reacted in violent abhorrence as dreadful memories resurfaced. I took one step closer at him, jaw clenched, my quick and shallow breathing rasping in my chest. It didn’t take a minute until L responded to my dramatic change in mood and behavior with a perplexed look. After the shocking moment of revelation, I didn’t think I could hold myself back anymore. I had done anything right and wrong to keep L away from the truth, from the murky world of the Japanese crime lord, but I never really calculated how long the hotheaded photographer would remain clueless. Now I stared at him in silent dread, so close to my breaking point.

“Akihito?”

“Whatever scoop you’re now pursuing, just drop it!” I raised my tremulous voice until my throat hurt from the friction of devouring emotions of anger and fear. My heart felt like it would crack my rib cage and jump out of my chest. And tears spilled out through the corners of my briefly closed eyes. “Don’t you ever try your luck on someone like Asami Ryuichi!”

“Hey, Aki—”

“Drop it, L!” I cut him short in a pleading tone of voice; being pushed beyond my mental, emotional, and physical limits. I lurched toward him and grabbed the collar of his t-shirt. “Stay away from that man!”

Simultaneous waves of searing pain clasped my nerves, blood pounding through my body harder and harder, but the sole view of L’s real existence before my eyes made me unfathomably unable to perceive the urgent signs of my weakness. I should have screamed in long agony after literally standing on both feet and reaching both hands out to him, but I surprisingly didn’t, sinking in soundless grief instead when I realized that the most important person to me was in danger. L gasped with terrified eyes, then frantically pulled a chair to sit me down and gave me a careful shake after he landed his hands on my shoulders, looking completely hopeless as if my soul had flown too far away from my frail body and he wanted to bring it back.

“Okay, let me explain,” he said imploringly.

But I rejected the negotiation, demanding him, “Drop that fucking scoop!”

“Akihito!” L yelled back at me with flushes of heat spreading across his bruised face, losing his cool, but then he looked apologetic and let out a long sigh in what seemed to be an arduous attempt to calm himself down. “Listen to me.”

I fell silent with his big hands securing my vulnerable pose, looking straight in the direction of his bloodshot eyes as he leaned down. His emotional voices reverberated inside my head. And without him knowing, I involuntarily fought the urge to place my palm on the side of his face. I wanted to touch him; wanted to shout to the whole world that he was mine, and mine alone, my sole responsibility — the man I would die for. And with each second that passed I felt like I swallowed bitter pills of poison, knowing that his free spirit was beyond my reach. I was on the verge of plummeting into branching outbursts — lunacy and grief. It was the intensity of concern in his eyes however, that held me spellbound, that locked my demons away.

“For me, Asami Ryuichi is surely a suspicious businessman, but can I say that I _unfortunately_ had no reason to chase after him?” There was a note of regret in his voice. “Not yet,” he admitted.

“So the scoop... isn’t on Asami Ryuichi?” I replied, momentarily breathless from short-term relief.

“No,” he clarified. “It’s just on someone that, I believe, that filthy rich bastard knows.”

For a minute or two I stared into space beyond his shoulder with my eyes blinking very slowly, not knowing where my strength was suddenly gone. I felt sick. It was like my heart fell down to my toes, as if I was in an ill-fated aircraft that was going into free fall from a deadly high altitude. When my eyes fluttered open, I could hear sounds again after a numbing period of deafness, finding myself supported by L’s sturdy shoulder. I let my forehead lean against his frame longer, breathing in the musky smell of sweat on his body that was mixed with the scent of sundried earth and dust. It was a strong sedative. My addiction. And I unconsciously wrapped an arm around him and held him close to my body. So close, until I stopped trembling.

“Why are you so terrified, Akihito?”

I shook my head weakly. “Nothing...”

L stared at me intently. “How could I consider them all as nothing?”

I remained silent.

“Are you hiding something from me?” His sharp, brown eyes were suspicious, putting me under pressure. “Is it related to Asa—”

Darting a glare at him, I punched him on the upper chest out of pent-up vexation. A light punch. “I’m just worried sick about you, bastard!” I shouted him down. On the one hand I was trying to cover a lie, but on the other hand I _did_ tell him the truth. “Why the fuck do you always lay up trouble for yourself, sticking your oar in the business of rich people?!” There were loud sirens from somewhere near, either fire or ambulance sirens, but we were both too flustered to even care about our surroundings until the noises were getting further and further. “Don’t you know what they can do to the have-nots like us?!”

This time L fell quiet, but no longer in a fiery temper.

With a flood of despicable images of a relatively young, Janus-faced Japanese billionaire in my mind, I gave vent to my resentment. “They’re just a bunch of unsightly fakes and nasty hypocrites, calling people like us pigs and rats! Power and money make them immune to justice and it’s pointless even if you manage to discover their dirty secrets! They can fucking turn the truth into total bullshit!” I paused to catch my breath, then hoarsely continued, “And to make it worse, they can make you miserable much more than you already are!”

“I’m not unaware of your disfavor for the glitterati,” L responded evenly to my embittered and biting frankness, taking me unawares as he gave me a pat on the head. “But Akihito, you can’t generalize about the rich and famous. This world is surely full of disgusting hypocrites after all, regardless of their social status and personal background,” he said. “And it’s my job to reveal the sordid truth behind their mask of respectability.”

“Holy shit.” I couldn’t help swearing at myself as I lowered my face into the palm of my hand, covering my eyes. “We’re both adrenaline junkies, no?”

Standing up straight, L patted my shoulder and sighed. “Sorry, Akihito. I’m not in the mood to have a debate at the moment,” he said, wincing a bit as he tried to stretch his arms. “I need a shower, then sleep. Think of my future plans later.” He then took off his black denim jacket and black sleeveless t-shirt, showing me his undeniably lean and well-built shape of body. After so many years of growing up with him, I had seen his nakedness for countless times, but I still gasped in amazement. I felt heat rise to my cheeks and fortunately, it seemed like his journalistic instinct missed the sudden and great increase of nervousness in me. “Damn it. I’ve only had five hours of sleep in these past three days,” he grumbled, scratching the back of his head. “I think your god of misfortune has been fond of me lately, Akihito. A broken camera and an injured face? Perfect,” he finished sarcastically.

“Let me tend your wounds first,” I said rather flatly, concealing my wild excitement about him stripping off.

“After I have the shower I deserve, okay?” He smelled himself and ended up making a disgusted grimace. “I can’t even stand my own stink!”

Completely nonchalant about his wounds, L went into the bathroom and unconcernedly left the door behind him ajar. Always. Him being a freaking perfectionist in terms of work and cleanliness was stunning, but the other fact regarding his carefreeness at home really set my teeth on edge. What I meant was, _that_ — the way he never bothered to think of my feelings when he moved around the apartment room from being shirtless to wearing nothing at all. Either he felt incredibly comfortable with me that he didn’t give a damn or secretly wanted to test my endurance, I really, _really_ , hated that ignorant side of him. It was a mental torture. My thoughts kept going to a wrong direction and it really took all my will to stick with the path of morality. But sometimes, I did deviate from ethical norms too. And I found myself unable to blame L for the indecent bliss that I felt and kept hidden.

I hauled myself from the chair and tottered toward the unlocked bathroom door, listening to the clear sounds of running water in the shower. Demons felt so close that my chest tingled with guilt and sinful excitement at the same time. Whispers of depravity, warning calls of the heaven — all fought within me to take over my system. Soon I got helplessly crushed in between, peeking over the narrow gap to focus on the tempting blurred silhouette through the shower curtain. Lump accumulating in my throat, pulse racing, I sensed myself falling from divine grace, disintegrating, consumed by a burning desire for the real being behind the curtain. Next I felt disgusted by my own immorality I wanted to bang my head against the wall, to bury myself six feet under ground and never rise again.

When the conflict between temptation and remorse became too much to bear, I turned around from the bathroom and closed the door, heavily breathing with a swallowed cry, a tight fist hanging on my side. I bit my lower lip hard, until the pain brought me back to my senses. And that’s when Asami Ryuichi suddenly appeared in my head — the way he alluringly called my name, his sly smirk, his domination. I hissed and gave myself a punch on the chest as a wake-up call. Even when that super rich criminal no longer held me captive, it felt like his presence was still following me like a shadow in the daylight and a disquieting chill in the darkness. Imaginations and memories of him haunted me anywhere, anytime, no matter how much I despised him. Or perhaps it was my own hatred that nurtured the seeds of evil he sowed inside me. It started to drive me insane. So I left the bathroom door, busying myself again with things I needed to prepare to treat L’s wounds and bruises. When L finally finished his shower, he came out only with a pair of black boxer shorts and a towel draped around his neck.

“What did you cook?”

A ripple of nervousness flowed up my spine. “How about coming here?” I asked him back from the sofa, faking annoyance.

Of course, L would ignore me once he stepped into the kitchen area. “I smell something good,” he said, curious like a child. “Wow, chicken stir-fry _._ ” And I knew that such enthusiasm wouldn’t last long. “Oh, wait a minute. Why did you put vegetables in it? You know I don’t like them, don’t you?”

“It’s because you don’t like them,” I replied unsmilingly. “Just hurry get your meal and come here!”

“And this _kimchi_?” A note of disdain.

“Tae Hyung made it.” I mentioned the given name of a bubbly high schooler that usually came to our apartment to play and improve his Japanese. He lived one block away from us. Like my impetuous roommate, he was also a South Korean, but obviously with a totally different personality. That lively and lovely teenager always tried to get close to the older South Korean, but that bastard L kept acting like a frozen mountain that was too high for Tae Hyung to climb. And I could never bring myself to understand why. “He wished you could like _kimchi_ more,” I said matter-of-factly. “Besides, all Koreans love _kimchi._ ”

“Don’t think so,” L answered with a shake of his head. “It always has the weirdest taste.”

I sighed in resignation. _Whatever_ , I told myself. For someone who was beaten quite black and blue, L made me unable to believe my own eyes and ears as he, after such a bad day, still had the energy to shower and loiter around the kitchen humming relaxedly while taking his too late lunch. And I couldn’t tell if he was immune to the pain or just too stubborn and prideful to show his weakness. When he walked toward my direction, I could feel the temperature suddenly rising and a few hard gulps weren’t enough to ease the nervousness that filled my lungs. I glanced away in an immediate attempt to help myself, but reality was always inescapable. Clueless about my unease, L plopped down onto the sofa next to me with a pair of chopsticks and a full bowl of just rice and cooked chicken meat. No vegetables, to my vexation, although expected. I was totally speechless. I had lost count how many times I gnashed my teeth because he habitually eliminated plants from his diet, but I decided to let it go this time, seriously asking him instead about his condition. And it must be one of his odd antics, because he insensitively told me to just tend his cuts and bruises while he was eating.

“Are you really a human?” I sneered, carefully putting a cold compress on the swollen cut above his left eyebrow. “Don’t you feel extremely hurt from these injuries?”

“I got a lot more during my high school days,” he answered calmly, changing the TV channels with a remote control in his hand. When he stopped, a famous female idol group in cute uniforms and miniskirts appeared singing and dancing on the screen. “And you’re always injured too every time you return from Circle Code,” he continued.

I kept my thoughts unuttered after that, concentrating on his swellings and wounds. If not on his unclothed biceps and abdominals that looked _really_ delicious.

“ _Na,_ Akihito, I think you should quit being a bartender and consider a better career,” he commented, suddenly ending my fixation on his fresh-scented body. “Like a cook or a patissier. Oh! And a barista!” Such ideas came from a series of my previous experiences and the astonishing fact that I was very adept at learning new things, but it surprised me how he meant what he said when I thought he just wanted to tease me. “And by the way,” he shifted his gaze from the TV screen to my unblinking eyes, lip curling into a smirk, “isn’t it ironic that the bartender actually has a very low alcohol tolerance?”

“So far I’m very pleased to be employed in Phantom Cell,” I replied peevishly. “And I don’t get your logic by telling me that being a cook, a patissier or a barista is _better_ than being a bartender.”

“But you work in—” he paused and made a grimace of discomfort. “A _gay_ bar.”

“So what?”

“It’s not a good environment, you know. I mean—”

“Everyone in Phantom Cell is really nice to me,” I quickly silenced him, feeling quite offended. “Hachisuka-san even still trusts me and wants me to continue to work there after my long absence.”

“Although Hachisuka-san only employs straight guys in his bar, or should I say — _her_ bar,” L disagreed, frowning at me, “I’m just worried if the bad influences of that place get into you.”

“So gays scare you while a gun behind your head doesn’t?(2)” I glared. “You can illegally break codes and passwords and mess with security while I can’t work in a gay bar?”

“Ow, that hurts!” he shrieked as I poked the red bruise on his left thigh. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I replied guiltlessly.

After those minutes of growing tension, complete silence surrounded us as we broke eye contact. Surprisingly, we both then sighed in unison. When we looked back at each other again, none of us could hold back amused smiles.

“Do you realize that we’ve argued with each other a lot recently?” I asked.

“We’ve been arguing since a long time ago. What’s the fuss now?” he asked me back in a mood of raillery. “If we match in all terms, I don’t think we’ll end up together.”

I let out a sigh and nodded furtively. There was raw bliss running through me, fixing everything up again in a way I couldn’t explain. “Takato called me before, for your information,” I said with fake calm after a clumsy throat-clearing, trying to hide the fact that I gave myself the creeps when one-sided amusement pounded harder and harder in my chest. “He wondered if you’re interested to be the photographer for his pre-wed.”

“Is he going to marry?” L stopped chomping and stared at me, cheek bulging with unswallowed food, eyes unblinking. “With a woman or a man?”

“A woman, of course!” I exploded, giving the side of his neck a hand chop. “Jeez!”

Holding back a laugh, he asked me again, “So he’s really a straight guy?”

“You accept the request or not?!”

“I’m happy for him and certainly interested to take the request, but you know...” he smiled, rather sadly. “My camera is no longer ready for use at the moment.”

I dropped my gaze, although I wasn’t really an empath. But the presence of profound sorry was there and my faking skill couldn’t conceal it, because I knew just how much the camera meant to L. Not only the primary instrument of his profession, the camera also kept the empowering memories of _someone_ who had made L realize what he wanted to do with his life. And that certain _someone_ was — _sadly —_ no longer one call away if L needed to hear some well-said wisdom of an old man. I believed I could buy him a new camera, but I didn’t think it could erase the consequential regret. A tinge of gloominess in his eyes was enough to tell me the truth. Yes, I knew him too much. He always acted tough even in the most painful times, too foolishly stubborn to show his weakness that he could be a pain in the ass sometimes. In uneasy silence I racked my brains just to find the right words to console him; to find the right ways to express my devotion to him without making him feel suspicious or disgusted. Or perhaps I was just a total fool for falling for him again and again, for using my whole heart in this dangerous game of a one-sided affection. It all had gone beyond the point of no return.

_Will he ever notice my true feeling for him?_

An unexpected sight sent shivers down my spine as I turned my face to look at him. Little did I know that L had been staring at me. With a knowing smile on his face. And I could feel my heart flutter, then burst like fireworks in a hot night of summer.

Here I was seriously thinking of how to cheer him up, but he suddenly became a bully — _oh, Good Lord!_ Channeling my surprise into immediate self-denial, I gave the impish man a warning smack on his arm and pushed him away. “That’s really creepy!” Blood rushed to my face and pounded harder in my ears, heat escalating quickly. I was so ashamed of myself. “What the hell are you smiling at me for?!”

“I’m just...” he answered almost quietly, after a series of giggles that jangled my nerves. “Relieved.” One fucking word for the whole statement of truth. And suddenly I was so bewitched by the wild beauty. “Since the day we returned from Koreatown, you’ve been kind of... how should I say it?” He shifted his gaze, tilting his head, rummaging in his linguistic storage. “Strange?” There was a note of inquisitiveness in his voice. And I unconsciously gulped hard, enduring the crazy beats inside my rib cage. “Do you think I didn’t notice it?” he asked, eyes like those of a jury in a law court who was about to deliver a verdict. “That you became unusually quieter and seemed like... you tried to avoid me?”

My heart clenched tight at his direct question. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Is everything alright?”

“O—of course,” I stammered. What a stupid mistake.

“I’m asking you again.” How I hated his domineering nature. “Is everything _really_ alright?” he repeated with a jarring emphasis.

With a frown of annoyance I replied, “You heard my answer, didn’t you?”

“Know what, Akihito?” To my surprise, L squeezed my cheeks with his hands, then told me, “If you want to keep a secret and lie to me, do it well.”

I pulled his hands away despite the knowledge that he was beaten and injured, giving him a piece of my mind, but he surprised me again as he laughed his ass off. And I couldn’t even tell what was so funny in that situation.

“Good, good! This is much better!” he exclaimed. “Gloominess doesn’t suit your image, Akihito!”

“Shut the hell up!” I exploded. “We’ve both been over twenty, and yet you’re still treating me like a brat?!”

As always, L and I finally ended up in noisy, face-to-face rounds of bickering and badmouthing each other. We were both adults, but in fact, never changed. And it was the huge difference between us that drew us closer. Natural chemistry since the beginning. Mutual impulses. And I didn’t think I could live my life without him.

I carefully tended his visible swellings and injuries, while he continued eating and testing my patience with his constant caustic wit. Sometimes I smacked him too (without using harmful strength, _of course_ ), just to physically remind him that I was still taking charge of him. And secretly I was impressed, if not terrified, because he could bear all the pain astonishingly well as if he was made of steel or something. His tasty muscles, from head to toe... his real presence that I could touch... again and again, I bit the insides of my cheeks to warn myself to steadfastly keep only decent things in my mind. L was the definition of a tempting sin, of the downfall of my rationality. But I kept secretly looking at him with repressed desire, prolonging the pleasure from admiring everything of him. Even his unattractive traits. And suddenly, a maddening image of a filthy rich bastard flashing through my head appalled me. I held my breath in response, losing track of the reality.

_Damn it! Why again... Asami Ryuichi..._

Soon after the treatments, L then rose from the sofa and walked toward the kitchenette, while I struggled to bring myself back to my senses. He seemed unaware of what happened to me. Better off that way, definitely.

“Wait, L...!” I raised my voice, half frightened if calling him was a wrong decision.

“What?” He turned around.

“Leave them in the sink,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “You... just take a rest.”

L stood still and looked perplexed for a moment. And when he walked back toward my position, a teasing grin that lifted his lips gave me quite a panic attack. He stopped behind the back of the sofa, then leaned down and pulled my chin upward. “How sweet you are. Can I make you,” he said seductively, “my lover?”

_Does he have a screw loose in his head?_

“Hey, Akihito,” he smiled broadly. “Why are you blushing?”

_Oh, yeah! I hate this bastard!_

“Cut it off already!” I vented my pent-up frustration, yelling right into his ear. He immediately reacted in shock and pain, but it made me feel satisfied instead of guilty. “Just fucking stop talking like perverted people in the bar!” I felt the urge to throw the aluminum basin waiting on the table and its content right at his face, but I managed to prevent the violence as I got up from the sofa and quickened my pace toward the kitchenette. “You really gross me out!”

“Come on, Akihito,” he laughed, “I was just kidding!”

“Fuck you, Kim Myung Soo!”

Half an hour later, after I had done the chores around the kitchenette and took care of the untypical mess L left behind, I found the annoying roommate — my first, _secret_ love — sleeping like a log on the sofa. With a towel covering his face, he almost looked dead if I ignored his soft snores and the rhythmic, steady upward and inward movements of his stomach muscles. I sighed in disbelief, wondering how he could peacefully sleep like that. But that wasn’t the only surprise.

“Maru?”

I gasped at the maximum cuteness in front of me. A once homeless, thin cat slept snugly on my roommate’s chest. Both creatures looked so peaceful, leaving me slightly jealous even though the sight of their closeness made me smile widely. I had no idea how long Maru had been taking L as his warm human bed, but I could feel the unease just from imagining if L woke up and found what the cat had made him.

Then I let out a long sigh, placing myself down on the matted floor, back against the edge of the table. I petted the pitiful bundle of gray and white fur, recalling the very first moments of our encounter. It was one of the coldest and worst nights of my life that I couldn’t tell to anybody, particularly to L — the _night_ when anxiety and depression hit me like a bullet train. I had been pretty good at pretending that I was fine, and sometimes, the lies took their tolls in my mind. Unwanted things kept happening. Bad lucks. Unnecessary mistakes. Some, I could cope with. But some other, I couldn’t escape from. I was tied to the devil’s plans, strangled, damaged. The presence of Asami Ryuichi had reshaped my life, changing me in a way that made the Pandora’s box in me open again. The days I spent in the captivity under his twisted mercy had given me so many nightmares. I wondered why I was still alive after countless blood-curdling calamities. Suicidal thoughts approached me more frequently, but the promise I made to L was the invisible warrior that fought them all.

So yesterday night I went out in the rain after terrible mood swings, after flushing my antidepressant tablets down the toilet, feeling so broken and disoriented. Until a sad meow knocked my soul and stopped me. A shivering cat staggered out of green bushes, then brushed the side of his face against my drenched shoe. I believed I heard a _call_ at that time. After a period of silent lunacy and numbness, my heart pounded harder as if I was slapped out of a daydream. I took the cat into my arms and our instant chemistry did the magic next. Right after that I got my sense of direction and went back home, leaving behind the facts that I almost got myself killed by speeding cars.

I slowly pulled myself to land a gentle kiss on Maru’s head, then shifted my gaze to L’s covered face. When I lifted the towel off his face, I knew he wouldn’t budge. Not even an earthquake or a cat could wake him, and that made me worried sick sometimes. However, I knew very well that I would be put under his spell again, fascinated by the innocence in his flawless maturity.

_Oh, damn it... I wish I were Maru._

I cursed myself, I gritted my teeth, I was sickened by my own twisted mind — _goddamn it,_ I didn’t care. When I brought my eyes at the same level with L’s finely sculpted face, I thought a bomb inside me exploded. Instead of leaving a trail of destruction, it released a rabble of butterflies that flew together toward forbidden bliss and fantasies. Boundaries turned vague. The world reeled before my eyes. I pushed aside the _brotherhood_ even though it slapped me back a hundred times stronger; pushed aside the times when we swore that we were one small family. My sweet demons were talking to me. And I responded to them desperately. When I blinked my eyes open, I screamed inside for someone to save me before I fell, while knowing that it was already too late. Heat stung my eyes. I sat on the matted floor, filled with self-disgust, a single tear rolling down my cheek. No pride. Drowned in lunacy. All I had said to him, indeed, was sheer hypocrisy. I was a dirty sinner through and through, trapped in a battle I couldn’t escape from. The truth was, I loved the way he teased me. I wished I could tell him that. And all I ever wanted was, to make him completely mine.

_I am gay._

_An unforgivable sinner._

_What the hell... am I doing?_

I wished time could stop and freeze me in infinity.

_Stop it, Akihito!_

I shed tears of remorse, but when I looked up at L again, I knew that I could no longer deny the indecent heat in me — that I was no different from a sick bastard who ever broke my body here, in this room, right in front of him.

Enjoying the sight of him, lower lip bitten hard, I ran my curious fingers down the length of his body. I satisfied my senses with every curve of his flesh, every pulse of warmth that spread through his exposed skin — _everything_ I could find. There was silent, maniacal excitement; there was serious, dreadful guilt too. I thought my conscience got crushed in between as I gave in without a fight. L had thin, curvy lips that needed to be appreciated with a long, passionate kiss. And soon I lost myself in the wild sensations of admiring him and touched those luring, pale red lips, imagining the craziness if I devoured them slowly. A spike of insatiable hunger coursed through me before I ever realized it. His sharp jaw, his clean neck. I wondered if a love bite could wake him up. And the limp bulge pressing against the front of tight shorts... and that’s when someone suddenly knocked on the door.

_What the fuck._

 

* * *

 

Of all people I was destined to meet that day, I still found it hard to believe that I sat across the table from a regular visitor of Phantom Cell. Outside the bar. I always, _always,_ made sure to set up clear boundaries that even the nicest gay I served in the bar wouldn’t try to have a shot at making me his “partner”. So far as I remembered, I had almost been too good at being a hypocrite — a _liar._ Only heterosexual men were employed, so I needed to meet that certain condition if I still wanted to work there. But _this_ older man, a relatively young and reputable officer in Criminal Investigation Bureau of Metropolitan Police Department, was frighteningly persistent at crossing the lines. Kurose Naozumi, 31 years old, a Detective.

_Personally speaking, I think he’s too hot to make a career in the police force._

Still single. Strong-willed. And I couldn’t tell if that was some good or bad news for me.

“Kurose _Keibu-ho_ (3)?” I held up the ice cream spoon I’d licked clean, inquiringly looking at the Assistant Inspector as the dreamy expression on his face never changed. When my voice finally reached his brain cells, I heard an embarrassed gasp, then an awkward throat-clearing as he pretended to momentarily look away. I wasn’t surprised though. If I could be frank with him, the way he fixedly stared at me while I savored my favorite hot fudge sundae really got on my nerves. “Could it be that... you actually don’t like this place?” I faked a worried smile as I stopped using my spoon to enjoy the delightful softness made of milk and chocolate out of the tall glass.

For someone who had been used to undercover missions, the charismatic bespectacled officer was always unexpectedly honest about his primary feelings. Only with me. Or maybe I was just being conceited to be given such undivided attention. He looked surprised, then sorry. And there was an uneasy look in his velvety brown eyes as I continued to show my concern about the place that probably was... quite _mediocre_ for him. Indeed, we were in a seating area surrounded by colorful shelves of various brands and types of _dagashi_ , located inside a convenience store facing the peaceful street of Sasazuka that was just a ten-minute walk from my apartment.

“You’ve been staring at me for almost twenty minutes,” I recalled, then glanced at a couple of high school girls who had blushes of interest on their faces while looking at us. “Or do you prefer drinking your black coffee when it’s colder?” I asked as I gazed down at his untouched cup of coffee. “Are you feeling unwell or something?”

My question wasn’t without a reason. In fact, I attempted to manipulate his nervousness. I knew it wasn’t very nice of me for having an internal conspiracy against him, but I was just trying to send him a _signal._ If he really was a great detective, I believed he would have understood it. So the middle-ranked police had come to visit me out of the blue, asking me if he could take me out to dinner for he also had something important to tell me. I told him straightforwardly that he came at the wrong time and I couldn’t leave L alone for hours, but it was okay if he agreed to have only “light meals”. And what I meant by “light meals” were candies, snack foods, a few pastries, lemonade and a tall glass of sundae plus a big bowl of banana splits. I gave him the affirmation in an in-store _dagashi_ shop that I called my “heaven”. An in-store café was also the reason why I chose that place. And since he said it was his treat, I took it as a chance to secretly teach him a lesson. So I filled a red basket I grabbed next with many things I could find on the shelves of _dagashi._ So many that his eyes widened at me. I didn’t care. He paid for everything. I didn’t feel guilty. He only ordered a cup of coffee. I showed him the side of me he wouldn’t see in Phantom Cell. And when he finally showed a flicker of realization, I had just finished my grilled banana splits after cramming down rice and seaweed crackers, chocolate-covered nuts and three slices of _castella._

“If you’re not feeling good, then—”

“I’m alright!” replied the dark-haired man finally, giving me an awkward laugh. “Yes, I’m alright!”

“Then is there something else that troubles you?” I subtly expressed my doubt. If this really was a battle of minds between us, I thought I had the confidence that I could defeat him. It was just pretty disappointing how he could be like such an open letter. Predictable. Boring. “Do I look ridiculous or—”

“Of course not!” Again, he cut me short unhesitantly. “To be perfectly frank with you, I always think that you’re a mysteriously interesting kind of person, Takaba.” I was sucking my lemonade when he said it. Consequently, the urgent effort to hold myself back from coughing hurt my nose and throat. When I looked back at the detective, an awed smile lighted his features and it gave me the willies. “So interesting that...” Our gazes locked. He put his elbows on the table and folded his hands, leaning toward me. I could feel my chest seize up as I froze in resistance. “I can’t help staring at you, Takaba.”

I gulped deep, damp breaths. “You’re not secretly trying to conduct investigations on me, are you?”

“I’m just... amazed?” I thought he was telling me the truth. “So you have great tolerance of sugar but not alcohol?”

“Who spilled that information to you?” I replied, trying to keep calm. “Kou? Takato?”

“Both.”

“What else do you know about me from them?”

“To tell you the truth...” He leaned back against the padded back of his chair, arms folded across his chest, legs crossed. I quickly recognized that way of sitting. A posture of a dominating personality. And somehow, it wasn’t unfamiliar to me. “I’m more eager to know about Takaba Akihito from the said person himself.”

Kurose Naozumi. I believed it wasn’t the first time he made me feel like I was being pushed from the edge of a cliff. It was my mistake to think that I could underestimate him. My hospitality was nothing but a mask. Just a mere formality. From the start, I never intended to be friends with him. And I thought he wasn’t naive. Of course he knew it, but he kept coming to me, pestering me even when I was off-duty only for some insignificant chit-chat. This officer really was a formidable opponent.

Today was no different. When not in his formal uniform, the detective preferred fashionable clothes and drove a sport car. A _fucking_ sport car. Either such unrealistically flamboyant appearance of him was a camouflage or not, I didn’t give a damn. But that would be a lame joke if he didn’t come from a super wealthy family. And as I recalled, Hachisuka-san once told me that he was actually heir to several family-owned companies. But I didn’t care what companies being talked about, as much as I didn’t want to know about how he could be a police despite having a wonderful life as a _bocchan_ (4) at home.

“You really have beautiful eyes, Akihito,” he suddenly said, starry-eyed.

“Thanks.” I only gave him a small smile. Unsurprised. He had said that so many times before. “By the way, Kurose _Keibu-ho_.” I then looked at him seriously. “I thought you wanted to talk to me about something.”

“Oh, right.” The detective nodded as if he had just got a splash of cold water on the face, then took a quick sip of his coffee in an awkward manner. I kept my amusement unexpessed. “So, after some investigations, there’s no definitive proof that you’re involved in the death of the man you found that night. To put it simply, you remain an innocent witness,” he told me. “Aren’t you glad to hear that, Takaba?”

I gave him a hard, cynical stare. “How can I feel glad of someone’s death?”

“We’ve got the evidence that the man is a recidivist of robbery,” he said. “And judging from his body tattoos and missing little finger, it’s very likely that he’s affiliated with one of _yakuza_ clans in Tokyo.”

“Are you implying that I shouldn’t sympathize with him?” I shrugged indifferently. “A criminal or not, he’s a human too. Just like you and me, Sir.”

It was unstoppable. A natural flow of unfriendliness. I couldn’t believe myself either — how I could be such a _jerk_ to someone who brought me good news. So ungrateful. But this police officer emanated _something_ that made me want to stay away from him. I admitted that there was an undisguised, very thin line between feeling disgusted and being defensive. And I knew he wasn’t blind to see how I treated him like he was a pain in the ass. Strangely, the longer I argued against him, the more I felt satisfied.

“To be honest...” I broke the quietness lackadaisically, not even showing my concern about why he fell silent after my last statement, then fed myself with creamy fruit toppings from my sundae. “I’d been prepared for the worst case scenario,” I said frostily, keeping my eyes fixed beyond the glass wall. “It’s unbelievable that all of you, _cops_ , finally stop coming to me with your accusatory looks and let me go.”

“We won’t arrest someone who’s not proven guilty of a crime.”

Almost choked, I held down my spoon with a soundless, wry laugh. “Sorry to say,” I replied with all the might to defy the good-looking detective, looking back at him, “but I can’t completely agree, Sir.” I shook my head, feeling my grip around the spoon automatically tighten. “Some cops out there are as rotten as wrongdoers,” I said with disdain. “Or perhaps sickeningly worse.”

Smiling suddenly, he said, “Well said, Takaba.”

I was caught off guard at the moment he shifted his weight in his chair and slightly tilted his head to smile at me. My heart skipped a beat or perhaps two. For a heavy coffee drinker, he astonishingly had two neat rows of white teeth that created a youthful, mesmerizing smile when they were uncovered. _Goddamn it,_ I gave myself a mental slap as I sat still like a fool and lost the rhythm of my planned apathy.

Looking back down at my sundae and spooning the cold white substance in the glass, I clumsily said, “Thank you for the relieving news, by the way.”

“I don’t think I deserve your gratitude,” he answered with a genuine tone of humility. “If anything, it is Prosecutor Kuroda who had cleared you of the possible indictment,” he revealed the unexpected detail. “Normally, it’s almost impossible to argue against him since he’s more intelligent than most people.”

“P—prosecutor... Kuroda?” I stuttered out of surprise. “Did I hear it right?” I had lost count how many times I stumbled into unluckiness that I didn’t know what to say. “Isn’t he supposed to _prosecute_ me in the law court?”

“Definitely. If you’re proven guilty,” answered the fashionable detective composedly, light brown orbs offering a tantalizing mystery. “But no proofs were found to connect you with the murder of Saga Harukichi,” he continued. That was supposed to be the source of relief, but the way he never took his eyes off me started to create a new wave of unease inside me. His inescapable stare. A whirl in my stomach. I hoped I wouldn’t faint from sugar intoxication. “And about Prosecutor Kuroda, he’s helped many innocent people before, setting them free of charges,” he said. “Mystifyingly admirable, isn’t it?”

“Shit,” I replied unconsciously. And next I could see his furrowed brow. “I don’t understand much about the world you and Prosecutor Kuroda live in...” Buzzes in my head. It was as if thousands of bees surrounded me and I froze from the sting of realization — that I had already been trapped in this circle of hell with no way out. “So I guess, in summary... I’m lucky?”

Finally, the detective made an expression that made my hair stand on end. “I’m afraid you need more than just luck since you’re already involved in this case, Takaba,” he said. I secretly marveled at his honesty. And at the same time I struggled to keep myself unfazed, reminding my wary soul that I wasn’t a weakling. That nothing was alright, but I could stand and get through anything. Again and again. “It seemed like Saga Harukichi had stolen a fucking lot of money from someone. Either he had intentionally betrayed his clan or swindled someone whom he should’ve never messed with.” I pressed my lips together. My heart was set on fire, but a bead of cold sweat dropped from my temple. The truth was as near as a conscious breath. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hear my thoughts that screamed out at him. “The continuation of this case mainly depends on the supposition that he was shot when he made his escape with the money,” he said rather glumly. “And you—”

“I helped him take the money to where it was needed,” I silenced him all of a sudden. I thought my heart was about to burst when the aftermath of my thoughtless heroism that night resurfaced in my head, but the detective was like a hunting lion in a wilderness — watching me in slow motion, ready to take any clue out of my behavior. Both of us didn’t know who shot Saga Harukichi, but I knew whom the stolen money belonged to. And if such information was leaked, I wouldn’t be the only one who paid the price. An innocent soul was the bet. “His daughter was in urgent need of an expensive heart surgery,” I said, suppressing my own fear with a hard gulp. “And I want to believe that he had died peacefully knowing that his little girl survived. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“Takaba,” he called me shortly after I finished my spoken thoughts. The note of concern in his deep voice made me quickly look straight at him. “Always be aware,” he reminded me. “The owner of the money must have been really pissed off. It’s very likely that...”

While waiting for the completion, I opened a bag of potato and corn chips and found a small robot figurine in it. My childish delight lasted only for a few seconds unfortunately, because he never finished what he wanted to say. “What?” I demanded.

“Revenge will be taken on you next.”

_Too late._

It felt like my blood started to boil. A smug grin of Asami Ryuichi was engraved on my memory and with all my hate and mute rage for that diabolical man, I said, “I have no regrets for what I had done.”

“But you do have fear, don’t you?”

“I’ve always been involved in unexpected predicaments that, maybe, _normal people_ can’t imagine.” Crackles of potato and corn chips made me feel relaxed. “I’m not even sure if I should be afraid or surprised.”

“Am I included in that category of _normal people_?”

“Perhaps. If you’re not raised by hardships in life,” I said without looking at him. “If when you’re hungry, meals are already served on the table.”

“Do you think I never meet hardships in life?”

“You wear fancy clothes and drive a fancy car.” Heavy criticism. And I didn’t feel bad for such a raw opinion. “Of all fancy earthly titles you can easily have, why did you choose to keep your nose to the grindstone in the so unfancy world of crime?”

“It’s because of skeptical people like you,” he answered. There was not even a bit of anger in his expression. “And people whom you called _rotten_ cops.”

I fell quiet. Surprised, confused, or maybe awed.

After a faint sigh, the man with dimpled cheeks took a sip of his colder coffee and then said, “We all have been through hardships, but just in different ways. And these hardships, most of the times, create chaos in society.” Sitting in front of him, I felt like a little rascal in a counseling session. And judging from his calm demeanor, I bet he must have dealt with countless troublemakers before. “Justice must be upheld to keep our world in order,” he outlined our main topic of conversation. “And some people must take the burdensome authority to keep the evil away from the good.”

“As long as people still continue to suffer, there’s no justice,” I refuted. “Justice isn’t real, Kurose _Keibu-ho_. If anything, it has a price tag on it.” I smirked away the stunned look on his face. “When money speaks, the truth is silent anyway.”

“I think you’re mistaken about one thing,” he replied. So persistent. Patient, despite my bitterness. “The truth doesn’t cost anything. A lie does.” That was a deep and strong conviction that I couldn’t deny. “And justice is real, like the air you breathe in. It’s invisible, but it exists,” he continued. “It exists although there’s only one person fighting for it.”

I kept my mouth shut this time. Oh, at least I was still munching on my snacks.

“You know, Takaba.” The detective tried to draw my attention as he loosened the tie around his neck. And I hated to admit that there was something captivating in such an utterly trivial action. “I always believe that my existence will be more useful if I join the police force. The dead can’t fight for justice, so the living must fight for them.”

I ate my sundae in silence, maintaining eye contact with him.

“My mother was murdered when I was ten,” he said, to my surprise. “And until now, the mastermind of the murder has been living unpunished. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“I do feel sorry to hear that, Sir, but...” My voice trailed off as I tried to decide what to say. When I once again took the side of my cold resolution to distance myself from him, I thoughtlessly said, “Truthfully speaking, you won’t gain anything from me by telling me about your mother.” And _goddamn it,_ I felt guilty. Finally.

“I know,” he replied with impressive positivity. “I didn’t tell you about it to get something from you. I did it for myself.” An uninhibited smile hung on his lips. “Sorrow and hatred are dangerous emotions, so you have to let them go.” I hoped that it wasn’t a binding spell, because I could hear my defense crumble from the inside. “There’s a saying that time heals the pain, but the truth is — time heals _nothing_ ,” he said assuredly. And suddenly I felt odd flutters in my chest that I couldn’t define. “It’s not about taking away the pain, but more about overcoming it. It takes courage to overcome it.” His gaze was like an arrow, hitting its desired target precisely. “And courage only comes from telling the truth.”

 _What is he trying to imply?_ I pondered, my heart pounding harder, something cold like frozen hands creeping up my legs. _Does he... probably know that I keep secrets from him?_

“Have you seen Saga Harukichi’s daughter after the surgery?” he suddenly asked.

I jerked my head up, then shook it spontaneously. “The last time I saw her was when I took the bag of money to the hospital. Only through the glass door of the intensive care unit though,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ve never paid a visit ever since, but her mother and I are still in touch with each other.”

“Justice is real, Takaba,” he smiled. “It is doing for others what we would want done for ourselves(5). Like you said. He could die peacefully, knowing that he could still save his dying daughter _through_ you.”

“Although it seemed like... I broke the laws?” I commented wryly.

“Laws separate what’s right from what’s wrong. Then humanity is when you dare embrace even what’s wrong, because you know it’s the right thing in that context.”

_What did I just hear?_

“Saga Harukichi had been punished since he knew that he couldn’t live long to see her daughter again. And you were there to give him the justice, Takaba.”

Giving up against his cryptic mentality, I leaned back in my chair and said, “I don’t get it, Sir.”

“Nobody else was there, right?” The detective recalled the truth from what I had reported to the investigators. “You could have just leave him in the rain and run away with the money that night. No witness, but you. And I don’t think we would find out about the bag of money because... you know, a dead body couldn’t talk.” He looked at me fixedly and it was just another trap, nullifying my attempt to restrict any sense of connection with him. “However, Takaba, you called us and risked your own safety for a little girl you didn’t even know, regardless of who that man was, where the money came from. What you’d done had saved you from being suspected of the murder,” he convinced me.

“Really?” I laughed dryly. Still couldn’t believe my ears. “But you know... I could be suspected of robbery too.”

The detective thought I was the hero. He was mistaken, sadly. The truth was, I had fallen victim to the most despicable villain.

“I can’t... really describe what I’m feeling, Takaba.”

I sat on my chair, speechless. Getting goosebumps. _What... the hell?_

“You’ve always been this lively, friendly bartender in Phantom Cell. No wonder everyone has a soft spot for you. Me too,” he confessed. The twist of events was too sudden it left me feel like a deer caught in the headlights. “Though you seem quite distant outside the bar, you’re still...”

I shifted my gaze down. His hand was already on top of mine.

“Enthralling.”

_Oh, shit!_

“Th—thank you for your concern, Kurose _Keibu-ho_ ,” I replied with a clear amount of nervousness in my voice, pulling my hand away from the big and warm flesh of his. “But I... I don’t quite get what you mean.”

Giving me a genial smile despite my disapproval, he said, “I once followed my target into a convenience store in Shibuya. A suspected murderer of a young mother. His wife.” I could feel my hair stand on end at the unexpected revelation. “Until I noticed a boy shoplifting. Hiding some packs of bread sticks under his jacket.” The well-groomed detective flashed a meaningful look at me. And soon my brain cells were trying to conjure up something very familiar. From his last statement on, the sense of predictability drew closer to me like a giant sea wave. I gulped hard with a stirring sensation in my stomach, listening to the chronology. “To my surprise, I wasn’t the only one who figured out the boy’s secret crime. I was about to approach the boy when suddenly... a dyed-blonde, _beautiful_ adult stopped him.” I knew I didn’t mishear when he gave a starkly different emphasis on the adjective _beautiful —_ a note of fascination. And I had to fight the urge to cringe. “I watched them from a distance. Couldn’t hear what they were talking about,” he said. “But when they together went to the cashier, I marveled at the find that the young man paid for an extra number of necessities instead of telling the security guard about what the boy had done.”

I didn’t realize that I had been staring down at my pile of sweets and snacks. Honks, outside. Children and their parents came and left. The main door of the store tinkled open and close. But I remained static in what I could describe as something close to be paranoia. I wanted to let out some curses at the space, but I found myself unable to speak.

“I thought I’d never meet the young man again.” His lips curled into an expression — soft, but intimidating. “Until I entered a certain bar out of boredom and found him serving drinks in there.”

“So you’re going to sue me now for the cover-up?” I asked, hiding the fact that my fear stuck in my throat.

“No.” Plainly calm. Or perhaps he just wanted to tease me. “Only if you tell me what happened to the boy.”

“His mother was sick,” I said, looking away from him, toying with my sundae. “The two of them were penniless and starving.”

“How about the father?”

“He said nothing after that,” I answered with a lackadaisical shrug. “And I don’t think that would be a _good_ father if he ever had one.” Memories of that time resounded through my head again. It was a couple of months ago, but I still remembered it as if it had just happened yesterday. The child’s eyes screamed out suffering that reminded me of myself when I was at his age. A broken, little soul. As much as I wanted to reach out to him, he always stepped back and refused to answer some of my questions. Now I regretted for letting him go just like that. Without a name. Without an address, if he really had one. With a flush of anger I then said, “I saw bruises on his face and hands.”

“Did you ever meet him again?”

I shook my head. “He left without even saying thank you.” I gazed back at him, trying to stay unfazed despite a roller coaster of emotions. “So... am I going to be sued or what?”

“Of course not.”

“I did the right thing, you know, so I won’t say thank you,” I said, pursing my lips.

“Got it.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, until I asked him out of curiosity. “So how about your target?” I avoided eye contact, finishing my sundae before it melted entirely. “Did you get him?”

“Yes.” Then quickly he added, “And no.” I froze in an instant. “He was shot dead after a brutal attempt to attack the officers,” he explained. Incredibly self-controlled. “Just a week after I secretly followed him into the convenience store.”

“Shit,” I unconsciously cursed under my breath, shocked at the information.

The detective showed me an amused expression, like one who enjoyed telling horror stories to kids and scared the hell out of them. I swore he held back his laugh when my jaw dropped. “Takaba,” he called me mildly. “Thank you for showing me that there’s still hope in this world.”

I warily shifted my gaze to him, lost in perplexity.

“I’m telling you this not as an officer, but as myself,” he said, brown eyes lit by profound delight. “To be honest with you, I’m getting sick sometimes of all the unrest and evil in this world, to the point I ask where the hell our humanity has gone.” Face to face. He and I. Dangerous proximity. I didn’t want to be captured by his soul, but forced to succumb to the very gentleness he emanated. “But Takaba, you’re one of the very few that shine brightly like light in the darkness. And like a tiny moth, I’m attracted to that light.”

“Ah!” I shot up from my chair and gasped. Terrified. “It’s been more than an hour already!” My body felt rigid from the strike of panic as I looked down at my watch. “I need to go back!”

“Wait...!” The appalled detective quickly rose from his chair too, knocking the table through the careless action, almost sending his cup of coffee clattering to the floor. “Takaba!”

“Sorry, Sir. I really need to return home,” I insisted, hurriedly putting the unopened packs of snacks, hard candies, chocolates and pastries into a plastic bag. “My roommate has been through a shitty day and I can’t just leave him alone.”

“Okay, fine. I understand,” he replied with a rising intensity of resignation. “I’ll walk you home.”

Pausing with crutches on my sides, I took a deep breath and said, “You don’t need to.” I hoped a smile could convince him. “For a meaningful hour of conversation,” I punctuated my honest words with a bow, “thank you very much.”

The bespectacled detective looked at me with a blank expression. Something that I didn’t expect to see from such a dignified man like him. His eyes widened, unblinking. “Let me walk you home, Takaba,” he repeated.

“But you parked your car quite far from here, Sir. It’s—”

“I’ll feel very guilty if I let you leave on your own,” he silenced me. “Technically, I’m paid by this country to keep her citizens safe.”

I knew it was useless to doubt the code of his professional ethics, so I sighed and said, “Alright, then.” Formality was the only key to lock the gap close. Our worlds were too different and I planned to keep them stay the same. “Thank you.”

Little did I know, that a crazy thing would unexpectedly greet me before I reached the door of the store. It was a shocking moment when I believed that I brought a bad luck to anyone around me. I didn’t know what happened in details, but after I took a few steps behind the taller detective, loud gasps and reflexive motions immediately stopped me. Next, I ended up speechless in a blend of disbelief, guilt and sympathy. Kurose Naozumi looked quite messed up with hot coffee staining his expensive clothes, but I couldn’t tell who was careless in the first place.

“My bad. Sorry.”

A cold apology. It was weird, suspicious, somehow. Soon enough, I knew why my ears tensed from the unfamiliar voice. Standing in front of us was a tall man of athletic build with undercut, charcoal hair. And I quickly recognized him as _that one,_ the stranger who regularly visited the coffee shop near my apartment and always looked in the direction of my balcony — as if he was _spying_ on me.

 

* * *

 

The headquarters of Sion Group located in the heart of Shinjuku were majestic multi-storey skyscrappers soaring high against the law of gravity, the most prominent steel and glass structures that seemed like black twin towers from above. Intimidating giants to humanity below, the futuristic buildings grew right out of the sleepless metropolis, blocking out the sun for the last half of daylight. They were deemed the icons of capitalism and a long-running legacy, owned by the most intelligent businessman in his era. I felt like an insignificant rat when I stopped to look up at the top of the skyscrappers. Even my neck hurt so much just from trying to estimate how high they were. Unbacked-up and already humiliated by such overwhelming supremacy, I then stepped back and froze across the street, gazing straight ahead at the grand entrance of the buildings with a heavy feeling in my chest.

_Should I do this? Should I not?_

I could feel trembles creeping up my legs, inferiority putting me in shackles, my mind depleted. Old sneakers, washed-out and ripped jeans, a plain black shirt, dyed blonde hair — I knew I only had zero chance to pass through the formidable line of security. People of the lowest social rank like me were merely vermin to the intolerant world inside the twin towers, but I had decided that I wouldn’t turn around and leave like a total loser, although my fear turned into blades and killed me from the inside. Carrying a fully-loaded backpack on my back, I took the hardest steps against the current of the wind, against the shameful cowardice in me, knowing that I might not return home alive.

Walking with crutches I quickened my pace before the green light ended, unwavering toward the fucked up fate that I chose myself, strange coldness biting my fingertips. I was neither fearless nor tactful. If I had the strength to continue treading a tightrope, it was solely because I was so possessed by deep resentment against the CEO of Sion Group.

And as expected, my presence wasn’t welcomed even before I reached the entrance of the building. With searing looks of suspicion, two out of five bodyguards in finely-tailored black suits approached me and I was immediately overshadowed by their size and height. They demanded me to tell them about my true intention and when I said that I wanted to see Asami Ryuichi, in an instant they gave me dirty looks and told me to leave. Of course I disapproved. And when I forced my way through their super strict codes of security, things went seriously worse. I had a physical fight against the bodyguards and caused quite a ruckus. But I didn’t give a damn, gambling on my own future. If I still had a future after my hotheadedness. I knew I would have broken bones again, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I retreated before I met that two-faced bastard and literally jumped down his throat.

Unluckily, even when I had a fair fight with one hulking security guard, I was gracelessly weaker than I thought. Asami Ryuichi surely had caused serious damage to my body, acknowledging that I could be a real pain in his ass if I could perfectly use my four limbs. It was an unavoidable failure. Pain and shame. Adrenaline was savagely pumped up. Soon I felt lost and drowned in the deafening hustle and bustle of the city and piercing profanities of the bodyguards, kissed by unfeeling force that made me grit my teeth and forget where I stood. For a minute or two all I could see was edgeless darkness, as if I was paralyzed in a sudden power cut in the middle of the night, as if a spinning black hole swallowed me. When I finally became sober enough to perceive my surroundings, the humiliating defeat made me realize that I was a lone wolf against a pack of enraged lions.

“Tell your motherfucking boss that I come to return his money!” I hoarsely shouted as I dropped and unzipped my heavy backpack. “Here!” I pulled out a few wads of _Yen_ and threw them right at the startled bodyguards. “Tell him I don’t want his fucking money!”

With no results from the aggression, I cursed for the last time and hauled myself away. Unburdened at least, because I had left behind the _thing_ that reminded me of the tormenting days and nights Asami Ryuichi abused me and treated me like a slut. If that arrogant old bastard thought money could compensate for what he had done to me, then I would pray he got hit by a bullet train or eaten by a hungry shark. Or at least got choked by the goddamn premium smoke he was breathing in and out. Died. In the most terrifying way. Worse than how he heartlessly slit his enemies’ throats open or shot people in the heads. Like deaths in the _Final_ _Destination_ movie. I just hoped he died soon.

Treading my way on the city’s sidewalk in silent fury, I could hear my teeth grinding against one another as I remembered the mind-boggling total of zeros following the odd and even numbers in my account.

Yesterday night, although aware of the fact that L hated being the second lead in the drama of pity, I had secretly planned to buy a new DSLR camera for him with the rewards that were finally returned to me. Admittedly, Asami Ryuichi had the hugest credit for that, but the rest of the story really drove me up the wall. I knew the exact sums of money that I won from the Circle Code ring (minus the debts that I had to pay off). So when I found out about the excruciatingly suspicious and unbelievable addition of money, I couldn’t put my wrathful blame on anybody else but that filthy rich bastard. It was a great shame that I couldn’t go against him face-to-face and vent the towering rages that I had been keeping away from my roommate. Fuck, those antipathetic bodyguards. My fists still itched to let it all go. My heart couldn’t beat normally as that jerk’s smug grin incessantly haunted my mind. I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance against the Japan’s underworld ruler, but allowing him to trample on my pride as he wanted would make my life meaningless.

_I hate rich people._

_I hated Asami Ryuichi of them all. Should I find a voodoo doll and curse him?_

Shinjuku streets were never deadly dull and quiet, but I felt like I was completely in a different planet when I glanced around. Among various faces and voices I couldn’t find my peace, so ruined by anger and the sense of alienation. I looked up at the birds in the sky, envying the wings that made them soar higher and higher while questioning myself again why I was still alive. After a quick realization I let out a wry silent laugh and continued to walk with pain pulsating through my body, knowing that I would die eventually.

I approached food trucks in front of a department store as soon as I spotted them, attracted by the delicious smells that sent cheer to my weary nerves. I ordered a jumbo-sized _kebab_ wrap then the largest portion of extra spicy _takoyaki_ next to the first truck _._ And three cans of cold coke. Street foods undoubtedly made the best means of relieving stress. After twenty minutes of waiting, I sat myself down on a bench and started to shovel down the huge _kebab_ wrap. As expected, my rage gradually faded away as my stomach was stuffed with food. And just when I finished my _kebab_ wrap, I felt my cellphone vibrating inside the front pocket of my jeans.

_“Akihito.”_

“Oh, Kou. What’s up?” I replied, then munched on my first ball of _takoyaki._

_“You join the surprise party for Hachisuka-san tonight, right?”_

“Of course! Leave the cake to me!”

_“Wow, great! Will you need any help then?”_

“Nah, that’s fine. Just do your part. Better stick with your silly clueless expression, so the boss won’t find out about our plan.”

_“Do I really do more harm than good in the kitchen?”_

“If you want my honest opinion, then yes. And I wonder how you can even survive living on your own.”

_“Say thanks to food delivery service!”_

“Seriously. I think I need to visit you more often to reintroduce you to healthy diet.”

_“As I thought, you’re really the best, Akihito! And, oh! For tonight, you can take L to the party too!”_

From that moment on, I needed to think harder of what to say. Kou didn’t voice that suggestion without a reason. Everyone in Phantom Cell had known that my boss — after constantly rejecting proposals of some potential lovers — developed a liking for my roommate after _she_ saw him pick me up a couple of times. It’s not that I had rivalry with Hachisuka-san, but I knew just how much L was against homosexuality. Particularly, when he already knew that Hachisuka-san wasn’t originally born a woman. “Um, well... I’m not sure,” I hesitantly said.

_“But can you imagine how happy our boss will be if L comes to her surprise party?”_

After a long sigh, I gave in and answered, “Okay. Let me ask him first.”

An approaching human shadow suddenly fell over me as I was about to take a refreshing gulp of my coke. Masculine feet protected by mountain sandals stopped right before me. When I looked up in stunned curiosity, the immediate sight of a stone-faced figure wearing square-framed shades froze me on the spot. A young man of tall stature in a loose-fitting sky blue shirt with one button undone, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Khaki ankle-length pants, unused suspenders hanging down from his waistline. Healthy tanned skin. Undercut, charcoal hair. It didn’t take long until I recognized whom I was fixedly staring at.

_“Akihito?”_

I was trapped in shock like a firefly in a jar, unable to decide which was real. The confused voice from my cellphone, or the intimidating person in front of me. My mind went blank. Our eye contact remained unbroken and the tight feeling in my chest grew even worse.

_“Akihito? Are you still there?”_

A hard gulp slid down my throat. I forgot the good taste of my food. There was a soundless confrontation. And the distance between us was filled by a heavy atmosphere.

_“Aki—”_

In the blink of an eye, my cellphone wasn’t in my hand anymore.

“What the—!” Leaving my words hanging, I shot up from the bench without my crutches in a spontaneous attempt to get my cellphone back, but the stranger just indifferently tilted his head and sank his hands into the pockets of his pants. “You!” I spat. “What do you want from me?!”

Giving me a cold expression, he said, “Boss demands you to see him right now.”

_Huh?_

I fell completely silent as soon as I heard him talking. Perplexity engulfed me. Ironically, my brain cells needed to take quite a while to recover from the inability to digest the unanticipated information. When the realization hit me like a gust of winter wind, I made a sharp gasp and shouted, “So I’m so fucking right about you!” Perhaps I overreacted. Obviously forgot that we were in public. “You’re that bastard’s underling!” I raised an accusing point finger at him. “You’ve been spying on me!”

“I prefer you stop calling him names, Takaba Akihito,” he replied icily.

“Are you threatening me?!” Heat flushed my face as my hatred for Asami Ryuichi mixed with my disapproval of his presence.

“That’s the last alternative if you take an undesired decision.”

“To hell with that!” I glowered at him, prepared for violence if it was the only solution. “In fact, I’ve got no fucking choice, do I?”

“Five minutes.”

“What?!” I responded in an outburst of anger, frowning deeply.

“We’ll leave in five minutes.”

Swearing inwardly, I plopped down on the bench and let the mysterious stranger watch me as I gobbled down my _takoyaki._ The pleasure had totally gone. Only deep resentment. I heard children happily laughing near me, but my aching spirit had been propelled to the top floor of the headquarters of Sion Group looking for revenge. After I was kicked out of the utterly strange world of the highly educated geniuses and disgraced, it was maddeningly funny that Asami Ryuichi sent somebody to pick me up again. _Well, fine._ I wouldn’t waste the given opportunity this time. It was very likely that I lost my life in this gamble, but I couldn’t continue to live without setting that cocky jerk straight on the absolute fact that no amount of money could ever make up for my shattered pride.

Exactly five minutes later, I indignantly followed the lead of a taller stranger whose name remained unrevealed. And he was really, _really_ inconsiderate. My first impressions about him were unquestionably full of bitterness. He didn’t return my cellphone though I said I wanted it back. And obviously I was struggling to keep pace with him because he didn’t even wait for a man walking with crutches! I knew he could hear me curse for his unsympathetic attitude, but he acted deaf looking only straight ahead and swaggering in front of me. As I wondered where the poker-faced stranger was going to take me, he suddenly stopped and told me to wait a minute before his shadow fused with the obscurity of a sloping area that seemingly led to an underground floor. I gazed up and fixed my vision at the artistically displayed name of a high-class boutique that I would never ever go into. Not long after, in the midst of me sneering at how meaningless a luxurious life was, a shiny black Audi R8 appeared from the basement parking of the palatial building and I couldn’t help stepping back with a dropped jaw. When the car made a smooth halt, it was the driver’s snap of fingers from the partially opened window that dispersed my state of awe. In total awkwardness and reluctance I got into the futuristic two-seated sport car, keeping my mouth tightly shut as I occupied the vacant space beside the unfriendly driver.

_Is this real?_

I gulped with a feeling that was the very opposite of the calm on my face.

_Not now, Akihito! Don’t get carried away!_

I took a deep breath to prevent myself from being a stunned fool. But still, getting inside the superior car felt like a dream came true. What kind of person I was to Asami Ryuichi that I got the privilege to be picked up in such a way that was really hard to believe? A temptation too great. Sweet, unnoticed lies. If these earthly matters were meant to persuade me into reconciliation with the evil, then he was hugely mistaken. After a fifteen-minute trip without exchanging any words with the solemn driver, I found myself momentarily breathless in immediate admiration for the gigantic twin towers of Sion Group that sprung up against the endless sky, then restless as I realized that I had gone too far into the world I never ever belonged to. Regret tried to make me hesitate, but I had been pretty much closer to my perfect enemy that I couldn’t allow myself to chicken out and surrender without a fight. I steeled myself and prayed to any gods who were willing to hear me. The end of it all was a mystery I had to solve alone, and worthy of my sweat and blood if they were the costs.

Getting deeper into the unpredictability of the situation, I kept looking through the window and found nothing that I was familiar with. My determination was tested, perhaps divided into two. To completely stop my involvement in this foreign and dangerous world, or to face the consequences of my thoughtlessness. I squeezed the worn-out fabric of my jeans, and decided once again that I could die in many ways but not as a coward. I screamed it inside. In unbroken silence I tried to clear my mind of discouraging thoughts, but it was quite a long and unnerving process of waiting until the charismatic Audi R8 got parked in a special area so high from the ground. There I saw other cars too — the most expensive cars in the world, I noted that mentally. And one of them was the black limousine that once held me captive during the turbulent period of Asami Ryuichi’s wrath.

When we finally left the car, I couldn’t admit to the taller man that nausea spread through me like a drop of black tint in fresh water, and my legs were feeling all wobbly. Even roller coasters never made feel this way. Because of repressed fear, maybe? But I continued to walk following his mute lead, moving from the super secured parking area into an elevator that would take me to a place only he knew. Even for just an elevator, the taller man needed to insert three different passwords and left his fingerprints on the scanner to make the door open. And when we were inside the carrying device up to the first floor from the top, I was sure as hell that only the President of Sion Group and people he truly trusted who could use the elevator, because it kept going up without interruption. I stepped back and leaned againt the slightly vibrating wall, covering my mouth in a grasp of dizziness. The stranger then put off his shades and looked at me inquisitively, but I remained silent with a hardened face as his sudden attention was unwelcome. When the elevator finally dinged, I saw the gleaming steel doors slide open for us and I stepped out after him. In growing unease I then immediately told him that I needed to go to the toilet, and to my surprise, he uncomplainingly showed me the way. And I did verbally thank him for that.

Almost twenty minutes later, I left the toilet only with brief relief as I found that an older men with a glacial look had been waiting for me at the end of the passageway. I immediately recognized that rough-looking six-footer. Suoh Kazumi, Asami Ryuichi’s most favored chauffeur and bodyguard. And I would never forget how this geezer — together with Kirishima Kei, the robotic secretary — obeyed the crime lord’s instructions and mercilessly killed those they deemed “betrayers and backstabbers” that night. His presence instantly reminded me of that hellish experience again, and I could feel my stomach clench as I drew closer to him. Chills suddenly brushed my spine when he scanned me from head to toe out of duty.

“I suggest that you behave properly in front of Asami-sama, Takaba-san,” said the hulking chauffeur as our gazes met. His tone of voice was deep and serious, with a slightly threatening twist.

Disguising the fact that his intimidation was inescapable, I gave him a scowl. “He’s your boss, not mine.”

“I believe you’re aware of the consequences if you get on his nerves.”

“Rest easy.” I smirked him away, sliding my hand into the back pocket of my jeans. “I won’t wet my pants in your boss’ office.” Then I gazed at the charcoal hair, making sure that he saw I never approved of what he had done to me. “Give my cellphone back,” I coldly said.

After a gruff sigh, the taller young man returned what was mine, saying nothing at all. And I really couldn’t tell if such a peculiar manner was arrogance or indifference. Even when he impassively shifted his gaze to Suoh Kazumi, nothing was heard. I wasn’t amused. There was only a lackadaisical gesture as he signified his leaving.

“Hey!” My tolerance was wearing thin. “Will you just leave without telling me your fucking name?”

For a long moment, it felt like time stopped around us. Still no sign of communication. I tried to read his mind, but only got an emotionless face.

“Shou,” he suddenly said, just as I thought he would never open his mouth. Then he turned around and walked away, leaving me stunned with an alarming blend of feelings.

Soon after Shou’s disappearance, the unsmiling chauffeur pushed me to start moving, ignoring my murderous glower at him. We turned to the opposite direction, heading straight for the main office of the crime lord. All I could remember was I saw nobody but us walking through a quite long dark-carpeted passage with black shiny wall on one side and glass panels on the other side. For a few counts I held my breath as I looked through the transparent thick frame, and down at the spectacular scenery of Shinjuku. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was both awed and terrified, realizing the sheer height of Asami Ryuichi’s skyscrapper that made me feel like I was walking on a string in the air. And Suoh Kazumi noticed that my mind went completely blank, because when he gave me a harder pat on my shoulder next, I gasped loudly in surprise at the unexpected sight of a huge mysterious door in front of me. And again, the door was equipped with sophisticated technology that never ceased to impress me. No key was needed in the security system, it seemed. Secret codes formed layered passwords. Only chosen fingerprints could made the sensory system hidden under the surface of the handle of the door react. Then I heard a soft click.

Nervousness surged up inside me as the metal door slowly opened, revealing a stunningly organized and well-lighted hall where I could see a few sets of seating that respectively looked luxurious, a billiard table and a sumptuous bar. I couldn’t define what I felt, but I believed I got mentally lost in such a foreign world I was unfamiliar with, like a child in the heaven of chocolate, milk and candies. As I kept walking in silent admiration, I glanced at several classic paintings hanging on the wall and the dazzling rows of bottles in the bar area, wondering how much money had been spent for this great comfort. Despite a disapproving look from Suoh Kazumi, I took my lollipop out of the pocket of my jeans and opened it. Ignoring my own mental reminder about the absolute significance of the man I would meet, I licked my lollipop for its relaxing sweetness then let it tucked under my cheek. In a moment that I didn’t expect, the third presence came toward me and the hulking chauffeur.

My lips curled into a sarcastic smirk. Unsaid excitement turned into distaste in an instant. “Nice to see you again, Kirishima-san,” I said in a quite provocative tone of voice.

“Are you intending to meet Asami-sama while... eating the lollipop?” he asked, dangerous eyes behind the spectacles.

“Is it better if I bring a gun here with me instead?”

After a period of judgmental silence, he said, “I wish your head is still connected to your body when you leave this building later.”

“Said the lapdog of Asami Ryuichi,” I replied spontaneously. And for that, I got a smack on the head. “Hey!” I turned around and glared at Suoh Kazumi who was two times bigger than me.

“Kei,” said the chauffeur to the secretary. “This brat must have huge balls to insult you and the boss.”

“Ask Asami-sama for the detail of his _balls_.”

“That bastard is fuckin’ nothing but a crazy old man!” I exploded. “Why the hell did you even—!”

“Listen, boy,” Suoh Kazumi silenced me immediately, his big hand wrapping around my arm with a brutal intention. “Under no circumstances should you speak ill of Asami-sama.” His cold eyes were enough to make my blood curdle. “You’re one in a million to be very fortunate because the boss wants to see you alive.”

“Oh! I’m so happy to hear that!” I shouted at his face with heavy sarcasm.

“I don’t think you’ve forgotten about what Asami-sama did to people who made him mad,” the secretary warned me. “Right, Takaba?”

“Fuck you all!” I put all my strength into jerking my arm out of the chauffeur’s grasp and looked away. “I hope karma bitch comes at you soon!”

After our short dialogue ended acrimoniously, I heard Kirishima Kei talk with the CEO of Sion Group through a tiny wireless device attached to his left ear. My heart skipped a beat as I realized how close I was to the demon who had drowned me in the horror of addictive sins. With a small beckoning gesture the bespectacled secretary made his partner push me to move, and next I resentfully followed their steady steps through a royal corridor that led directly to a majestic door at the end. Behind that door, Asami Ryuichi had been expecting my presence. And I didn’t plan to be the defeated one this time. So I hoped. While we drew nearer, the door opened and six people not in formal business suits walked out of it. I stopped and stepped aside out of reflex, watching them in growing unease as they somehow didn’t look like any of salarymen. Black ripped jeans, black shirts, black jackets, sneakers, dyed hair, tattoos, ear piercings. They were all even as young as me, but the aura they emanated made me keep getting goosebumps and have a nagging suspicion. And when they spoke, I didn’t understand any single thing they said but the language and accent sounded like Korean. I had no idea about what happened inside the presidential office, but my instinct told me that I should never ever get involved with them.

“Now you can get inside,” said the strict secretary. “Behave yourself, Takaba.”

I braced myself, holding onto the thought of the worst case scenario so I wouldn’t get shocked. But suddenly, when I walked past the opened door, there was a savage urge in me to quickly turn around and flee for my own sake. For the first time I got the chance to see the very exclusive office of the leading businessman in Japan, nervousness feeding off my shaken sanity. I breathed in the tormentingly unfamiliar atmosphere and sensed the incoming intoxication that I was always afraid of. There he was, Asami Ryuichi, standing in ominous silence as he faced the huge glass panel that separated him from the city he controlled, the supreme demon without horns. An iron-fisted noble. I gulped down the air that turned into spikes in my throat. His presence alone was so overwhelming that it set me ablaze inside, sucking me into a shadowy world where I got caught in lies for so many times. It was my fierce wish to see him alive, face-to-face, but after a couple of weeks without encounter him, my body suddenly opposed me as a betrayer that showed its true side against my brain. Against my will. Against what I believed I could do.

“Asami-sama, you only have half an hour to talk to this brat.”

“Only half an hour?”

That deep voice was like a dangerous dark spell, immediately stirring up an uninvited feeling inside my chest. Something cold but gentle like a feather brushed up against my bare skin, calling my sleeping demon that I kept on a very tight leash. I swallowed down the mass of sweetness behind my tongue in cautious stillness, only to realize that I felt nothing but the strange shivers that went uncontrollable when Asami Ryuichi turned around and shot me with his dark golden orbs.

“With all due respect, Sir, the next meeting with our Middle Eastern guests must not be delayed.”

“Thank you for reminding me, Kirishima.”

After the door behind me smoothly snapped closed, there was an unbroken period of silence that suffocated me as if a leather belt wrapped around my neck. I couldn’t even feel my fingers, almost deafened by the raging poundings in my ears. My brain wasn’t in sync with my body. Fear engulfed me in an instant, turning into a ghost that clamped its paralyzing hands over my mouth. A few steps backward. I was exposed to inescapable danger. Fragmented memories of my abduction sprung to mind, sending a signal to myself that I had gone beyond rescue. Wavering between hate and unsolved edginess I looked at the powerful enemy, desperately needing a hard slap on my face.

“I know you’re aware that I’m a businessman with a hectic schedule,” said the dark-haired older man, arms folded across his chest. “So what are you coming here for?”

I felt stripped off before his sharp gaze, felt so small and insignificant that I just wanted to burst into pieces and disappear.

“Nobody has ever tried to cause chaos in my office,” he continued. Heavy domination. “But it seems like you’re not within the mainstream.”

_Damn it! Speak, Akihito! Move!_

“Tell me the reason behind your action.” A strong request, not to be left unanswered. “Perhaps I’ll forgive you.”

_I’m so doomed._

“Come closer, Akihito.”

It felt like I was breathing in poisonous air — indeed, the air was _poisoned_ by his tantalizing scent and the sweet smell of nicotine that narrowed the gap between us in an unexplained way, testing me, threatening me, trying to put me in heat. I stood soundlessly like a frozen statue, listening to my own crazy heartbeats and swearing at myself. A helpless loser I had become, undeniably. Time flew so fast I started hallucinating that his spacious office turned into a secret chamber of torture where I once learned about sinfully twisted kinds of pleasure. And now there were only the matchless Alpha male and I. Something was just so wrong. I tried to figured out why I could neither speak nor move to signify that I was still alive and sane. When I snapped out of the false visions my brain offered me, I was so surprised to find that Asami Ryuichi already stood before me in what seemed to be a flirtatious mood.

“Since you’re not going to talk,” he paused with a wanton smile on his face, jerking the lollipop out of my mouth, “I have an idea to get those thoughts out of your head.”

I gasped, ensnared in the intricacy of his personalities. “Wait! You cannot—!”

“It ain’t my fault, Akihito.”

By reflex I shifted my gaze down as the diabolical man dropped my lollipop on the dark-colored floor. It was a breathless moment. Transfixing. A hunger for something forbidden escalated quickly. His, or maybe mine. I made a futile response, disoriented by our sudden proximity and mostly the confusion that made me unable to scream. I felt strangely numb as his big hands became rougher and locked my face. The instant our lips collided,  anger rose inside me like a tidal wave and crushed me first. But Asami Ryuichi was a good kisser. Too good. My pride was shattered for the umpteenth time, gnawed away by the wild warmth that infiltrated into my dysfunctional system. I was scared I was feeling high in the humiliation.

“Asami!” I pushed him away before I completely lost my conscience. “You bastard!”

“See?” A wolfish grin flickered across the perfection of his face. “Now you talk,” he said amusedly, drawing nearer to me again. “Or maybe... were you actually waiting for me to kiss you?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I shouted at him in disgust. “If you thought your money could buy me, you’re goddamn wrong!”

After a brief moment of thoughtful silence, he said with a slight frown, “Money?”

What a distasteful provocation. “Don’t make me punch you on the face, you jerk!” I really hated the way he acted clueless half-heartedly. “I know it was you who added the zeros in my account!” I angrily rubbed the back of my hand against my lips, then darted a glare at him. “I don’t want your money and I will never ever forgive you! Bear that in mind!”

“Oh.” Even his expression and tone of voice didn’t show any bit of surprise. He was clearly testing the waters. “I thought you were under contract with me?” he asked with a wicked smile. Then he leaned down toward me and whispered, “Who agreed to be my partner in bed?”

Looking away from the overpowering enemy, I freaked out in the motionlessness, in the dead silence that I couldn’t break. My chest hurt so much as if I had just swallowed down a burning stone. And each time I breathed in, the lingering richness of his cologne drove me insane. When heat stung my eyes and my body started to tremble, I knew I would shed tears right in front of him. “Not for your fucking money,” I said in a low voice. “I...” Sinister laughs reverberated through my head. Shame consumed me like a parasite, leaving me weaker than I had already been. “You can’t—!” I hung my head down in torment that I kept battling with inside, unable to complete what I wanted to say as self-disgust incarcerated all memories that gave me the power to move on. “I agreed... for the sake of Asami-chan and her mother...” I unwillingly admitted, squeezing the expensive fabric on his chest. “Why don’t you just die... and go to hell?!”

Much to my surprise, the two-faced man suddenly caught my wrist and forced me to face him.

“Fuck you, Asami!” I shouted, resisting his fierce domination. In the outburst of anger, my eyes were blurred with tears. I thought the veins in my head were about to explode. “This body might lose against you, but that’s the only thing you can get from me!”

His unkind gaze penetrated me. Condemning. Underestimating. “Are you trying to be a hero?”

“If I were the hero, I would make sure you were severely punished,” I said acidly. “Or dead.”

“Why are you so willing to sacrifice yourself for people you don’t even know?” he replied, still giving me a scornful look. “Will you get anything in return?”

I immediately stopped myself from letting out useless, ugly sobs. No sadness, indeed. Just fury that I couldn’t contain. And great disappointment in reality for the unfairness I had been witnessing. “If you think I do this to atone for my sins... then, no,” I answered with a tremulous voice, half killing myself in the process of unleashing my thoughts. “My life... my body... is nothing at all.” A wry smile grew on my dry lips. I looked at the crime lord, but vivid images of a clueless girl kaleidoscopically appeared before my eyes. “But that child... she’s everything,” I said. “Because no child in this world deserves to live in pain and fear...” I roughly pulled myself away from the older man, against social etiquette and against the whole Asami-centered universe in this tower of blinding success, fully aware that he was the same beast that my twisted mind craved. “It pains me to see how an innocent child has to suffer... while a fucking bad man like you live longer basking in your disgusting glory and power.”

Asami Ryuichi looked at me with a stony expression. Silent, unreadable, dangerous.

But I fought my worst fear and said, “I feel sorry for you, Asami.” A derisive smirk. Perhaps it was the last moment of my revenge. “You won’t even understand what I’m saying.”

_Finally... it’s all been said._

Then I stepped back unwaveringly, stepping out of his shadow that always tried to darken my faith. “I apologize for taking up your twenty minutes, Sir,” I said coldly after glancing at my wristwatch, expecting a serious threat to my existence. But the very well-respected businessman remained wordless, impassive, with his golden brown eyes like daggers stabbing my fragile soul right and left. “I guess it’s fine since you’ve still got enough time to prepare yourself for the next meeting.” So I bowed for the last time, breaking eye contact. “Then I’ll take my leave.”

_Escaping this place is impossible now, isn’t it?_

There was a sense of horror as I turned around and tried to open the door, as if a really, _really_ bad thing might at any minute break out. I gulped hard in the failure to make my way out of the suffocating tension in the presidential office, feeling like a little mouse caught in a cheese trap. Right before a despairing complaint left my mouth, I was roughly pushed and got squeezed between the cold steel door and a ferocious man behind me. My jaw hit the concrete surface so hard that the pain spread through the roots of my teeth. For a few seconds I felt like paralyzed, seeing the world spin around before my eyes. Then I moaned, trying in vain to break free from the physical lock.

“Let me go, Asami!” I spat, writhing helplessly as he bent my arm behind my back and leaned all of his weight against me. “I already returned your money!”

“Money?” he laughed darkly next to my ear, then nibbled it. “Not money,” he said. “I want to fuck you up.”

“You bast—!”

I failed to let out my voice when suddenly he turned me around in his beast mode. And again, I was pinned against the door with his thigh occupying the gap between my faltering legs. Now my unbroken arm was raised above my head, his grasp around my wrist so firm I could feel my blood struggle harder in alarming poundings. In the futility of my responses I realized I had picked a fight with the wrong person, starting to get disoriented by the elusively pleasing scent of his body, adrenaline coursing through my veins. When his hand snaked down my front body and suggestively paused on the zipper of my jeans, the rapid pulses of my heart sent dangerous signals to the demon that had been lying dormant inside me. I was challenged. Weakened. Enslaved. But with all my remaining strength and fortitude, and hate, I counterattacked the supreme leader and as a direct result of my unanticipated violence, he got a scratch on the neck with all buttons of his dark vest ripped off. In an instant I gasped and froze, wide-eyed, horrified by my own doing.

“Still untamed, huh?”

The corners of his magnificently sexy lips curved into an evil, excited grin. I held my breath. I could feel my hair straighten up, blood curdling around my heart.

“It ain’t my fault, Akihito.”

The next thing I remembered was Asami Ryuichi hungrily assaulted me on his luxurious desk, spreading my legs so he could lean down and kiss me senselessly, biting me, making me kick the air in a pointless attempt to free myself from him, bringing me to the very edge of my limit. I gasped for air in the rawness of our instantaneously connected desires, lying helplessly with my hands bound under my back in a very tight knot. In the darkness I desperately held onto my logic, but soon succumbed to the rising heat that made my body keep shivering from the teasing pace of his tongue. Each time I opened my eyes I saw his lecherous gaze, and each time I closed them the forbidden pleasure multiplied and made me lose my senses. I wanted to curse at myself, at him, but his huge hand silenced me down as soon as it unzipped my jeans and found my fatal weakness. My angry screams echoed across the place before they turned into lustful gasps and moans, corrupting my mind. I was breathing erratically in excruciating sexual tension as he toyed with my hard erection, slurring my pleas, tightness spreading through my body similar to a bowstring before an arrow was released. Smirking smugly, the crime lord knew that I was only a few strokes away from my climax. Then a loud beep was heard all of a sudden. And I bit my lower lip hard in frustration when he stopped moving his hand.

_“Asami-sama, I believe you do not want to miss the next meeting.”_

“Kirishima, I want you to handle it on my behalf.”

_“Pardon?”_

Reclaiming the marks of his territory on my wriggling body, the cold-hearted seducer flashed a mischievous grin at me and let the concerned person on the other side of the line wait in uncertainty. Rough gasps crept against my damp skin. Dirty talks. Licks, stimulating bites on my ears. Nipple play. His tricks were as nasty as hell, but the demon under my skin responded voraciously to the overwhelming warmth of his perfect body. When he took off his vest, when he impatiently unbuttoned his top-brand shirt, I knew I could no longer run away from the irresistible devil in front of me. Breathing too quickly, I turned my face away with eyes squeezed shut, shame burning on my cheeks, bottom lip bitten so hard I could taste the slight saltiness of blood mixed with sweat in my mouth. I knew his plan just from glancing at the smoldering fire in his eyes. Inspiring perplexed madness in me, he sought to reveal our war of hormones inside his room to the secretary. I glared at him with abhorrence, but it seemed to make him engrossed in abusing me even more  — as if he _really_ wanted me to hate him since the beginning.

_“I apologize for interrupting, Asami-sama, but I am afraid you cannot skip the next agenda.”_

No immediate reply. I was taken aback by the flat tone of the secretary’s voice that suggested disinterest in what Asami Ryuichi was doing to me. And with nothing said, the boss made it clear to the bespectacled man outside that his top priority was now me. Tears rolled down from the corners of my eyes as I got closer and closer to the outburst of my shattered soul. I couldn’t hold the hoarse sounds behind my clenched teeth anymore. The torture felt too good I started to limp under his reign of terror and pleasure, mentally begging him to move his masterful hand faster. So high. Out of body. There was no coming down. I was lost, beyond salvation, in colliding hazy memories and hallucinations that floated over my eyes. And when his sinister tongue roamed wildly inside my mouth, raging hormones blew all my hate and reasoning away. In deep ecstasy I let the repressed energy and my feverish moans out as loudly as I could, satisfying him with my release and raw honesty.

“Kirishima.” A peremptory note.

_“Yes, Sir?”_

Then I heard the old bastard start to talk about matters related to his legal empire to his attentive right-hand man. Looked self-controlled and decisive even after turning me into a total mess. And I was still too high in sinful satisfaction, also inexperienced, to understand business terms and strategies that Asami Ryuichi briefed his secretary on. But then I suddenly felt a jolt of tingly sensations, triggered by unexpected aggression that forced open the entrance into my body down there. I whimpered in the terror of the moment, I screamed in disgust and bit my tongue, but the sadistic creature gave me a wolfish smile and continued using two of his fingers to push his way through my vulnerable opening — all while he authoritatively talked to his secretary.

“Asami, you’re crazy!” I let out a piercing shriek, pain racking my body as I fought against the tight knot of his belt. “How can you—!”

“What?” he seductively replied, amused by my statement that was never finished, taking his diabolic fun out of the obvious conflict within me. He leaned down until his sculpted chest pressed against mine, the softness of his lips brushing my ear as he whispered, “Doing business while preparing to pound your ass?”

“Screw you, Asami!” I cried myself hoarse, no longer aware of the fact that the communication between the boss and his secretary had not ended yet. Covered in sweat I kept opening and closing my eyes, losing control of my body that reacted wildly to the slightest sensation caused by his fingertips. The back of my head repeatedly slammed against the hard surface of the desk, resulting in lingering dizziness and disruption to my thinking. My blood boiled inside. I felt hard again, suffering from adrenaline punches. Barely breathing. Hating the enemy, but undeniably so into his indecent game that made me want it longer and rougher. “Ah... shit... you... nh... bastard... s-stop... stop it... or I...”

“Or what, Akihito?”

Suddenly I replied with an escalating moan, racked by an unstoppable release for the second time. Like a dysfunctional machine, I shuddered to a complete halt and surrendered to the propelling force that brought me to the seventh heaven, erratic breathing rasping in my chest. Exhaustion and pain flooded through me, but the abhorrent pleasure was indescribably immense I could do totally nothing against it. I was desperately breathing through the hanging gap between my lips, mind in a shambles like scattered puzzles.

“Good grief,” he said with a clear hint of triumphalism. “You came again just from me fingering you.” His hand trailed on the seminal fluid smeared over my stomach, up to my neck, then curved around my jaw to make me look at him. “Do you love it that much, Akihito?”

_“Asami-sama, your command.”_

“Just do as I said, Kirishima. I have a little rascal to discipline here.”

_“Understood.”_

After an ominous loud beep, I could feel a thicker atmosphere of amorality and unforgiveness engulfing the presidential room like a sudden outbreak of a rare disease. No way out. Asami Ryuichi literally took my breath away when he kissed me roughly, trying to slap me out of my momentary rest. “Say, Akihito, wouldn’t you like to have a beautiful life under my wing?” he whispered, his hand knotting through my sweaty hair, then pulled my face closer to his, waiting for an answer with a crooked smile.

“No... fucking way...” I gasped in a flush of anger, choking on my words. “Not even in hell...”

“Listen, Akihito,” he said with all displays of domination. “One day you will chase after me and beg me to take you with me.”

I tried to look away, but his hand around my jaw tightened instead. “It’s never going to happen... you bastard!”

“Wanna bet?”

I glared at him through watery eyes, engraving the heartless contentment on my memory. “If you don’t kill me...” I said through clenched teeth. Almost powerless. Filthy. My lower legs hung down from the edge of his desk, hindered by the tightness of my jeans that was half way down to my knees. Darkness buried me even when the light was still there. And I forced back tears that pricked the corners of my eyes, swallowing down the bitterness from not being able to fight as I always did in Circle Code. Like poison, it stung my heart. This fucking bad man, Asami Ryuichi, had turned my world completely upside down, strangling all my strength with his iron fists and dead heart. “If you don’t kill me now...” I repeated huskily, a giant grudge hammering against my chest from the inside. “Then I’ll live to see you fucking fall to pieces and become dog food!”

Unfazed by my futile threat, he pressed a smile against my ear and whispered, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Unlike before, the dark-haired man then overwhelmed me with kisses that felt like the softest feathers on my trembling lips, surprising me with a new wave of sensations that made me fall into a deep trance again. There was no violence when he ran his fingers through my hair, when he eased the tight feeling in my chest with the slow movements of his hand, when he called my name. I was so drown in the untypical gentleness, eyes closed, carried away by lies and the heat of that moment, until he suddenly said into my ear, “Kim Myung Soo.”

My eyes shot open and the first thing I saw was a brooding glint in his eyes.

“Is he the young man I saw the last time I visited you?” he asked. “Your roommate?”

If my imagination could turn into one of the reality, there would be a knife stabbing through my heart. A cold sweat of horror broke out over me.

“Is he a very significant person to you?”

In a matter of seconds the pleasure he gave turned into a piece of hell. My heart felt like it suddenly stopped beating. It was a moment of unwanted revelation. The way he looked into my eyes sucked the life out of my body. After showering me with harmless lingering kisses and sugar-coated praises, his expression hardened again with unkindness. And I was caught off guard, horrified by a sudden thought that he might have the scarce ability to read someone’s mind. It was what I had always been fearing of — the time when the crime lord poked his nose into the ultimate secrecy of my private life. I itched to know the ulterior reason why he suddenly uttered the name of my long-time friend, but started with only a clue that was merely a piercing gaze that I couldn’t decode.

“Does he _love_ you back?”

My body rose up in a fiery response to his unexpected question and then I stiffened, ready at anytime to literally jumped down his throat. I knew what he meant. A stony silence between us. Open confrontation. I glared revengefully into those magical golden brown orbs, kept telling myself not to fall for them again as they were Bermuda in a person. And I crashed with mystification and fury, knowing that the enemy could effortlessly see right through me and found what I had been hiding when nobody else could. Not even L.

“How do you—”

“Know?” he stole the last word out of my mouth. A haughty smile on his face. That mystery was left unsolved as he continued to asked, “Is that a reciprocated feeling, Akihito?”

In the face of heavy intimidation, I fell silent while his oppressive eyes bore into me. If I were sick from hating him, then I would be at my terminal stage. He then caressed the side of my face with a hint of pity in his expression, as if he could understand all the pain that I kept unsaid from the absolute one-sidedness of my feeling. No weapons, hands bound, so I tried to kill him through my gaze, but this man was frighteningly far superior even with his still presence alone and next I hung my head low. Exhausted, pained, I could only pressed my lips tightly together and curse him in my mind.

“Oh.” Clearly fake surprise. “He’s not a gay?” he said sneeringly. “What a shame.”

Head jerked up, I instantly shouted in sudden towering rages, “Shut the fuck up!” Out of reflex I moved my arms and legs, only to realize again that I was defenseless against the smiling demon. “You know nothing about me, Asami! You—”

Asami Ryuichi silenced me immediately when he leaned over to let me know that, “My men caught your dear roommate sneaking into my club as a fake member a couple of days ago.” It sounded like a bell of death. And I froze with my mind going back home, wide-eyed with a surge of fear as he slid his thumb over my bottom lip. “Do you have any idea what I should do to him?” he asked darkly.

I gulped hard, a chill running down my spine in the void state of spoken thoughts.

“Say, Akihito,” he smiled knowingly. “Will you be the hero again this time?”

An unbroken period of wary quietness. High from the ground. Time froze. Our opposing demons were tangled. It felt like my heart sank as old memories in a safe house roamed inside my head. Good and bad ones. Mostly bad, but they turned out _good_ since a South Korean adopted kid entered my life. Asami Ryuichi was waiting. Eagerly. My mind juxtaposed his haunting lopsided grin with complete ignorance on L’s face. Eventually I knew I had foolishly involved myself in a game I could never win. “Are you... blackmailing me?” I replied in a tremulous voice, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  

“I admire your youthful bravery,” he said, squeezing my cheeks together, “but I’ve got the life of your dearest one in my hand.”

“Fine!” I spat. Sentimental parts of me were shut down. “Just tell me what you fucking want!”

His brow creased slightly. “Why asking when you already know?” He rested the palm of his hand on the side of my neck, sharing warmth that sent pacifying stimuli to my nerves. “I want you, Akihito.” Sharp and straight. There was no lie in his message. “Every inch and shape of you.”

I looked at him in furious silence, hating myself for the worst ending that I allowed to happen. I came to confront him, but ended up spreading my legs and moaning, accepting the disadvantageous deal with the devil. “Do you really... always... drive a hard bargain?” I dropped my gaze, a shaken gloomy voice forcing its way through my reluctant lips.

“I’m a businessman after all.”

“Fuck you,” I hissed as I shook my head, then looked away, seething in complete silence.

Asami Ryuichi pushed my chin up and soon I realized I was already fucked up. His sharp gaze made my heart flutter again. A sign of danger. As much as I hated the lord of Japanese gangsters, his utterly dark soul was irresistibly addictive like a rare hallucinogenic drug, and I always found myself going round and round in the delusive paradise he created, wanting for some more. “So I have two conditions.” His lips gently brushed mine, causing me to gasp in surprise. “First, return to Circle Code once you’re ready to fight again,” he said.

Instead of his clear statement, it was a genuine hint of gentleness he emanated that locked me in disbelief, given the fact that he was totally a manipulative and abusive bastard. I even almost believed that I saw a completely different person.

“Rest assured. I’ll be your patron this time.”

My expression hardened as I prepared for the second condition. “And next?”

Much to my puzzlement, the filthy rich bastard said nothing. A fathomless smile was his only language, as if he really wanted to leave me agitated in curiosity. And before I could ever demand him to speak, he suddenly took off my shoes then jeans, freeing from the binding. I looked at him with the intensity to break the thus-far impenetrable wall that protected his intention from being known, only to get an excited smack on my butt in return as he effortlessly lifted me up from his desk. I wailed from surprise instead of pain, totally clueless of what he was going to do. Answering me with unexpected actions, Asami Ryuichi moved me away from his luxurious desk with his hands squeezing my butt cheeks, gaining my whimpers as he pressed in between the junction of my thighs. And out of instinct I desperately leaned against his solid frame to secure my position, wrapping my unbroken leg around his waist while he then moved one of his hands to my other thigh to provide a strong support.

I was terrified by the extreme closeness and unable to utter any single word, until we then bounced on the grandiose designer sofa waiting in his office. It was strange how I suddenly had quick breathing as if I had just run for miles. I felt light-headed from a phenomenon of pheromones, shivering with something I couldn’t prevent as my nakedness reacted to the dangerous bulge right beneath his zippered front. So in the mood for doing sins. The temperature was rising, so was my anticipation of the crime lord. He leaned against the back of the leather sofa with me on his lap — legs wide apart, under his absolute control. I bit my bottom lip hard when his hands started to indecently massage my tense abdominals. Every touch chased my sanity away. His naughty nature was exposed, causing me to toss my head from side to side in a disgraceful flush of excitement.

“Are you really a Japanese?” he suddenly asked, to my surprise.

_The same question again?_

“The color of your eyes is mesmerizing. I can stare at them forever,” he smiled, being so out of his character. And somehow it made my hair stand on end. “From whom do you get those beautiful grayish blue eyes?”

With a hoarse voice I answered, “I wish I knew...”

“Are you sure you’re your father’s son?” His straightforwardness caught me on the wrong foot. “Perhaps your mother cheated on somebody?”

“You bastard!” I growled at fever pitch. “Don’t you ever bring my mother in this!”

“Oops,” he replied with nothing more than just fake guilt, pressing his thumb against the corner of my mouth. “Don’t be so grumpy, Akihito” he said, an inviting smile flickering across his flawless features. “I just want to know.”

“I don’t—”

I never finished what I wanted to say as his lips suddenly crashed against mine. Ecstasy and dizziness broke in me, overlapping each other. A series of hot juicy kisses made me forget that I was a fighter, made me unable to feel the searing pain as my hands strove to jerk themselves free from the knot of his belt. His evil was too sweet and soon I found myself buried deep down in his insatiable appetite. Love bites declared his territory. And for a while I believed I didn’t belong to myself anymore. He tortured me then made feel good; devoured my pride then replaced it with something that I only wanted more and more. I got lost in his presence, whimpering pathetically and thrusting myself onto him out of animalistic instinct as he skillfully stroked my rock hard erection. Faster and faster. And he continued to mercilessly tease my aroused organ while biting and sucking on my nipples, driving me crazy with so much pleasure I couldn’t contain anymore.

“Asa—!” I screamed as I was about to reach my climax, horrified by the fact that he suddenly, unforgivingly, clenched my raging flesh. “Asami! It... it hurts...!”

His dark laugh broke next to my ear, then he seductively said into me, “Call me Daddy. Beg me like a pathetic son you always are.” Distasteful, yet a real turn-on. “That’s the second condition.”

I looked at him through blurred vision, trembling hard, unable to think of anything.

“Come on, Akihito.”

“Da...”

“Louder.”

“Da—daddy...” I stuttered in a state of delirium, tears leaving the corners of my eyes. “Please... let me... come...”

“Good boy,” he replied in an amused tone of voice, then released my heated flesh. To my puzzlement, he also untied the knot of his belt that caused my hands to go numb. Batting at me, he let out the gentlest demand I had ever heard in my entire life. “Now kiss your Daddy, Akihito.”

And that day, I broke my promise.

I couldn’t come to Hachisuka-san’s surprise birthday party in the end. And after that moment, I had to make a lot of alibis to cover up the fact that my lips were bruised from kissing the insatiable demon over and over again, unable to stand up long and walk for days.

 


End file.
